


Love Strong As Death

by Alexa_Snow, JaneDavitt



Series: Laying a Ghost [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 21:47:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16375589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexa_Snow/pseuds/Alexa_Snow, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneDavitt/pseuds/JaneDavitt





	Love Strong As Death

Chapter One

Nick pushed his chair a few inches away from the desk and stretched. He’d been sitting long enough that his right foot was numb. He had a tendency to sit with it curled around the leg of the chair despite the pins and needles he knew would result, but he’d been on a roll for once with his writing, the words flying through his fingers, and it would have taken a gun to his head to stop him.

Strange, he thought, how it was like being addicted to a drug. Of course, there were times when writing wasn’t easy, not at all, and at those times he could make a thousand excuses not to sit down and turn on the computer. But when his brain engaged, it made him feel powerful, as if there was some level of magic to it.

He glanced at the clock. Barely three, and he wasn’t expecting John home from his fishing trip until about four.

A cup of tea would get him upright and restore circulation, he decided, and went to the kitchen to turn the electric kettle on.

Movement through the window attracted his attention. Nick frowned as he realized it was their car and headed to the door to investigate. John normally put the car in the barn, leaving his van outside, no matter what the weather, and the fact he’d driven around instead was puzzling.

John was too long getting out of the front seat, and one look at his face told Nick something was wrong. John was white, jaw clenched in a way that spoke of intense pain. His hand was wrapped in fabric, cradled against his chest.

Nick was outside in an instant, wearing nothing on his feet but his thick wool socks. Injuries on their remote island could be serious, with limited resources close by and the larger hospitals a ferry ride and a long drive away. Possibilities raced through his head, ranging from the ridiculous notion of a shark attack to the more prosaic guess that a gust of wind had slammed the car door against John’s hand. “What happened?”

“Caught it between the boat and Rory Donne’s dock,” John said tightly. “No, don’t touch it.” He hunched his shoulders, drawing away from Nick as if terrified of the additional pain even a light touch would bring.

Nick swallowed, fighting a wave of sickness as he experienced the event in his imagination—the grinding sound of wood against wood with John’s hand sandwiched between them, the excruciating agony of crushed flesh and bone radiating throughout John’s body, leaving him stunned and helpless. “I won’t. What do you think? The clinic or hospital?” The latter would mean a trip off the island.

“Have to let Dr. Cameron decide.” John wavered, blinking down at the ground. “Where are your shoes?”

“Under the desk,” Nick said, trying not to sound impatient, because his feet didn’t matter and John’s hand did. “Come on, get back in the car, and I’ll grab them. Is there anything inside you need?” They might not be home for hours if they ended up at the hospital. He’d bring his wallet, and John looked like he’d need a jacket—the sweater he’d been wearing when he left to go fishing was nowhere to be seen and might well have been left on the boat.

“Bloody hell,” John muttered as Nick got him settled in the passenger seat. “Shit.”

Nick’s hands trembled when he grabbed their jackets off the hook on the wall. He checked to be sure his wallet was in his jacket. He’d never dealt well with stressful situations—ironic, since he’d been exposed to so many of them over the years—and he hated it when John was sick or hurt. It shook him, made him imagine a time in twenty or thirty years—not sooner, no sooner than that—when he’d lose John for good.

He shoved his feet into his shoes and went back to the car, started it up, and adjusted the seat before putting it into gear. “Good thing it was your right hand. You wouldn’t have been able to drive.”

“Was a close thing.” John whimpered as the car hit the ditch at the end of the yard.

“Sorry, sorry.” Concentrating on driving more carefully, Nick glanced at John’s wrapped hand. There was blood on the fabric—more than he liked to see, but not a frightening amount. “Is it broken, do you think?”

“Aye. I heard the bones crack, and I can’t move my fingers.”

“Don’t even try. Did you— The blood—” He couldn’t finish his question. Asking if John had lost a finger or more was beyond him.

“Didn’t want to look at it too closely, but they’re still attached.” John bent forward, retching without producing more than a horribly rasping groan. “God, they’re a mess.”

Nick couldn’t give way to the darkness clouding his vision. Blinking to clear his eyes, he patted John’s arm and increased his speed now that they were on a better road. “It’s okay. Take some deep breaths. We’ll be there in a minute, and Dr. Cameron will do the looking.”

Lucy Cameron’s office was on the ground floor, with her living quarters above it. Nick had felt a kinship with her since she’d moved to the island. It was a sign of the community’s insular nature that she was still referred to as “that new young doctor,” though she’d been there ten years, and he’d always be seen as a newcomer.

The waiting room was empty, and the receptionist, after one distressed exclamation, ushered them straight in.

“Oh dear, what’s this, now?” Lucy asked when they went through the doorway. “John McIntyre, what have you gone and done to yourself?”

“You’re supposed to be the doctor; I thought you’d tell me.”

Nick helped John to a chair, eased him down carefully, then took a seat close enough to grab John if he fainted, but not close enough to be in the way.

John turned his head away when she unwrapped the cloth around his hand. “What happened?” she asked again.

Nick averted his gaze, focusing instead on John’s ear, which was familiar and looked as it always did. “He caught it between his fishing boat and the dock.”

“Aye, that’s what it looks like. You’ll be needing some X-rays, I’m afraid, and I haven’t the equipment to take them here.” She turned and gestured to a cabinet on the wall. “Nick, be a love and get me a roll of gauze.”

He made the mistake of looking at John’s mangled hand as he passed her the gauze, and his stomach lurched in sympathy. It was worse than he’d imagined. No bones showing white, thank God, but blood and bruised flesh, dark blue and purple, verging on black, the fingers swollen and misshapen.

John had beautiful hands. Strong, deft, tanned to a deep brown, capable of the gentlest touches.

“We’ll get this cleaned and wrapped up and have you over to the hospital in a flash,” Dr. Cameron said. “Nick, why don’t you go see if Danny can take us over to Mull in the ferry, and if he says he’s not due to leave for another hour, tell him to take his schedule and toss it in the sea.”

Nick heard the unspoken information—while this wasn’t a life-or-death emergency, it was an emergency nonetheless, and it would be wise to communicate this.

By the time he’d found Danny, explained the situation, and returned to the surgery, Dr. Cameron had John settled in the backseat of her car.

“That’s right. Easy, now. No hurry,” she told John, who was whiter than Nick remembered from only a few minutes before. “Nick, you get in the back and keep him company while I drive us down to the ferry; there’s a good lad. I’ve given him a local anesthetic to numb the worst of the pain, and there’s an ice pack with him too. Lucky for him his tetanus shot was only last year.”

He was grateful for the chance to comfort John with his touch, though he felt him trembling. It wasn’t until the doctor had driven the car onto the ferry that John became unsteady .

“I—” John looked confused, his normally sharp eyes glazed.

“Get his head between his knees,” Dr. Cameron said with concern, and Nick did, guiding John’s head lower. She spoke reassuringly from the front seat. “All right, John. No, keep your head down for a minute; that will help. Deep breaths, now. Steady.”

Nick kept a hand on John’s shoulder, not that there was far for him to fall. He felt the boat’s rumble and vibration change as they pulled away from the shore. “Should he lie down?”

The doctor considered the suggestion, then said, “He’s probably all right where he is, and the more you shift him around, the greater the chance you’ll jostle his hand. He’s a bit shocky. There should be a blanket back there. Drape it over his shoulders if you can. I’m going to keep the car running, so it will warm up soon.”

Nick managed to do as he’d been told, but John’s lack of response worried him. “John? Hey, talk to me.”

“He’s all right,” Dr. Cameron said. “Nick. He’s in no danger, I swear to you.” Her steady gaze met his when he glanced into the front seat.

“Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Cameron.”

“You can call me Lucy, you know.”

“Thanks, Lucy.” Nick pressed his lips together tightly for a moment and found his inner resolve. “You hear that? You’re going to be fine.”

John shifted and groaned softly. “Should have had some whiskey.”

That sounded like a terrible idea to Nick, but he went along with it because it was such a relief to hear John’s voice. “Yeah. Too late to drop by the pub now. Hang in there, okay?”

“Try not to be sick on your trainers,” John promised.

“Are you kidding? Then I’d have to get new ones. You’ve been telling me to do that for a year or more.” Which was funny since John’s sneakers were as beat-up as Nick’s, not to mention twice as old. “Tell you what—once we’ve got you fixed up, I’ll get new ones, okay? I’ll do anything you want.”

John nodded, head still hanging low.

It took forever to get across the brief bit of ocean, and an eternity to drive to the hospital. The only thing that didn’t take forever was what, in Nick’s experience, usually did—they didn’t have to wait to be seen but were ushered immediately into an examination room. Maybe it was because they had Lucy with them, friendly but authoritative, expecting and receiving instant results. John’s hand was unwrapped and studied again before he was sent to have it x-rayed.

“Three breaks, one compound fracture,” Lucy said briskly, examining the scans sometime later. “No affected joints, though. That’s the good news.”

“What’s the bad?” John sounded more relaxed now that he’d had something for the pain, but he was still much paler than Nick was used to seeing him. His tan was there, but under it was a grayish tinge, robbing his skin of a healthy glow.

“I think one of the breaks will heal best if we do an open reduction, which means surgery. It’s quick and there’s little risk, but I assume you’d like your hand back as close to normal as possible.” It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll make the arrangements. They’ll have to call the orthopedic surgeon in from the mainland, so it will be a few hours. Try to get some sleep if you can.”

It was a relief to have John to himself, if only for a short time, but Nick didn’t know what to say. He moved a chair over near the bed where John was lying, hand carefully wrapped in an ice pack and propped on a pillow. “Can I get you anything?”

“God, no. Stay here with me. Don’t fancy being alone right now.” John turned to look at him. “Feeling stupid, to be honest. How many times have I put that boat into a dock? Hundreds, maybe a thousand.” He shook his head slightly. “Must be getting old.”

“Middle-aged, maybe,” Nick told him.

“Upper middle.” John sighed, and Nick ran soothing fingers through hair with more silver in it now. When they’d first met, it’d been all brown, lightened by the sun in places.

Sometimes, thinking about the years he’d lived through before he’d met John made Nick crazy, not that any amount of time together would be long enough. “Don’t feel stupid. It was an accident. You’re so careful usually.”

“Aye, well. The last thing I’d want would be for you to get bad news.” John closed his eyes, took a slow, deep breath, then let it out raggedly. Nick waited for more, then realized John had fallen asleep.

The next hours dragged for Nick, though John slept through them and didn’t wake when Nick kissed him before he went in for surgery. Nick blinked away a few hot tears before phoning their friend Michael and John’s sister Janet, because sooner or later someone would miss them and begin to worry. He would’ve called John’s mother, but she was with Janet, making his job easier since Janet was left with the unenviable task of passing on the news. Nick couldn’t face the inevitable stream of questions and lamentations from his mother-in-law. He liked her, but in a crisis she tended to attack with words.

He was more than half-asleep himself when John stirred. John had been wheeled in an hour before, awake but hazy, drifting off before Nick could get anything out of him but a weak smile.

“It’s okay,” Nick murmured, sitting up, then setting his hand on John’s shoulder. “Shh, it’s okay. Everything’s fine. It all went fine.”

John’s lips were dry, rubbed red in one corner, presumably where a tube had been, and he swallowed as if it hurt. He didn’t open his eyes right away, but fifteen minutes later when Nick was getting ready to lay his head down on his arm again, his eyelids flickered. When they lifted, his blue eyes were dazed, clouded with pain and confusion. “Nick?”

“Right here. You’re fine; your hand is fine. The surgery’s over.” Nick touched John’s face gently, reassuring himself with its warmth.

“Hurts like hell,” John rasped.

“I know.”

A nurse entered the room, brisk and flushed, as if she’d been hurrying. “He’s awake, then? That’s good—right on schedule.” She checked John’s blood pressure, made a notation in his chart, then smiled. “I suspect you’re wanting something for pain about now?”

“Aye,” John said.

She administered the medication through the IV, and Nick watched John’s face anxiously for a sign it was working, which didn’t take long. It was only a few minutes before John was grinning at him.

“Feeling better?” Nick asked.

John nodded. “Can see why people like this stuff so much. S’nice. Floaty.”

“You’re high.”

“Mm-hm. Might as well enjoy it.” John’s smile was shaky and faltered as he studied Nick’s face. “You look tired.”

“It’s late. Michael and Sheila, Janet and your mom all send their love, by the way.”

It was obvious John was working at half speed by how long it took him to respond. “Do they, now? That’s nice.”

“Michael said if you hated the idea of helping him mend the shed that much, all you had to do was say so.”

John chuckled. “Aye, that’s one job he’ll need to see to himself, unless Sheila doesn’t mind waiting awhile for me to have the use of my hand again.” He raised his eyebrows. “Unless you feel like taking my place?”

Nick did not do well with hammers and nails, and John knew it. He rolled his eyes, acknowledging his limitations good-naturedly. “Two of us with bandaged hands would be a disaster. I’ll pass. I can provide moral support.”

“Don’t think that will keep the shed upright in a gale,” John murmured, his eyes glazed over now, the words emerging as an indistinct jumble.

“Sleep.” Nick stroked John’s brow gently until he drifted off, then sighed and leaned back in his chair. He’d thought he might sleep a bit, but a different nurse came in before he relaxed fully.

“Dr. Cameron left this note for you, and she said to make sure you followed her instructions.” The woman crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him seriously, as if she was following orders too. “Well? I’m waiting.”

Nick had already taken the note. He unfolded it and read:

  
_I’m having them bring a portable bed into the room for you, and I expect you to use it. An exhausted partner is no one’s friend.  
SLEEP. I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll bring the things Sheila said she’d pack for you. I’m serious, Nick. Sleep.   
You’ll regret it if you don’t, and not because you’ll be bleary-eyed. _

Lucy ended the note with a smiley face, and Nick found himself smiling in return despite his weariness. “Thanks.”

“You can thank me by behaving yourself,” the nurse said as an orderly wheeled a bed into the room. It was a mattress on a folded metal frame, both of which looked like they’d seen better days, not that Nick was in a position to argue.

It struck him how lucky they were to be in such a small facility, with a relaxed attitude. In a larger hospital, he would probably have been shooed away and told to come back the next day at the designated visiting hours. Small communities had drawbacks, a total lack of privacy being one, but there was no denying the plus points. Time and again over the years, he’d seen the islanders casually bypass a rule or law with a shrug and a wink from authority. At the back end of nowhere, with cooperation vital to the survival of the community, pragmatism took precedence. There was room for him here, so why make him hunt up a place to stay for the night?

He washed up in the tiny bathroom, then, since John was sleeping soundly, took a short walk to a chemist he’d noticed on the way in, thinking they’d need it to fill any prescription John was given. He was prepared to sleep in his clothes, but not without brushing his teeth. The shop supplied what he needed, along with some snacks and bottled drinks and a magazine. He would’ve liked to linger outside, breathing in the soft, damp air of the autumn night instead of the stale air inside the hospital room, but the need to be with John made him take quick steps, the bag he carried bumping his thigh.

Back in the room, wincing at every creak of the bed, too narrow, too high, he turned to face John and closed his eyes against the light from the corridor and his ears to the muted bustle of the hospital.

He lay there for what seemed like hours, unable to toss and turn, willing himself to sleep. It wasn’t that his brain was on overdrive, which was the more common reason for him to experience insomnia. He wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, because he knew there was no point worrying how long John would have to be at the hospital or if he’d have permanent problems with his hand. Worrying about those things wouldn’t change what came next.

Every hour or so a nurse came in and checked on John. Nick kept his eyes closed, unmoving, pretending to be asleep. The sounds of the hospital faded into the background, and he imagined he heard his pulse, a relentless drumbeat in his ears. The steady in and out of his breathing should have lulled him into dreams, but sleep seemed impossible.

* * * * *

There was a woman in John’s bed. The room looked the same otherwise, though Nick had the distinct impression he wasn’t there, that he was transparent, invisible. The woman was a few decades older than him and must have been seriously ill. She was pale, with deep dark circles underneath her closed eyes and an oxygen tube tucked into her nostrils. Nick knew she’d been there for some time.

Was he dreaming or seeing a ghost? Sleep-caught and disorientated, he wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. He sensed what he saw had already happened, making it impossible for any action of his to be meaningful.

Pity welling, along with a nagging worry about John’s whereabouts, he stared at her, noting the tiniest details with a clarity of vision unusual in a dream. Her hair, dull from illness, was light brown streaked with gray, tangled in places, and her hands moved restlessly against the white bedcovers, small twitches and strokes. Not in a coma, but a natural or drug-induced sleep.

She opened her eyes when a young nurse came in, one Nick had seen earlier chatting with a doctor, a flirtatious giggle audible from yards away. He wasn’t seeing far in the past, then. Sometimes he got glimpses from centuries earlier.

“How are you feeling this morning?”

The woman wet her lips with her tongue before replying. “Better.” The thin whisper and the labored breathing contradicted her, but the nurse nodded as if she agreed.

“Keep it up, and that lovely husband of yours will be taking you home in no time.”

“Soon.”

The longing in the word pierced Nick’s dreamy haze. He knew what it was like to miss home and a loved one. He’d gone on a book tour once, together with three other authors who wrote about psychic phenomena. He’d been away from John for two weeks, and by the end of it he’d been hungry for John’s presence, living off the scraps of brief phone calls or Skype conversations.

He sensed how desperately this woman longed for her husband. It was such a strong sensation that he rose—the bed didn’t make the faintest sound now, caught in the same fantasy he was—and went to the foot of her hospital bed. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do; he was certain she wouldn’t hear him.

“Sir? Are you all right?” It was the young nurse’s voice, uncertain and close by.

Nick blinked and discovered the part where he’d stood and walked to the foot of the bed hadn’t been a dream. Now John was in the bed again, and the surge of relief made Nick swallow past a sudden lump in his throat.

“Yeah, thanks. I’m fine. Tired, though.”

“It’s hard to sleep here, what with so much going on,” she said with sympathy. “It’ll be morning soon. Do you want to try to get a bit more rest? Or shall I bring you a nice cup of tea?”

“God, I don’t know. I guess I’ll sleep some more. Thanks.” He wasn’t convinced he’d slept at all, not that it mattered.

When she’d gone, John opened his eyes. “Maybe I’d have liked a cup of tea, but no one offered.”

He should’ve known John would wake early. The man thought rising at five was normal and lying in until the sun was fully up in the summer months a sin and a shame. In the winter, when it was daylight from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon, if that, his internal clock kept ticking.

“I can call her back or point out you need your rest.”

John struggled up to sitting, using his good hand to push the pillows behind him. He made the scoffing sound Nick could never replicate, a throaty growl. “I’ve lain here for hours, and it’s my hand that’s hurt, not the rest of me.” He studied Nick’s bed. “You stayed with me?”

“Yeah.” Nick yawned, the crack of his jaw painful. “Stayed, not slept, or at least not much. I dreamed about— Never mind. How do you feel?”

“Well enough.” John pushed the covers away. “I’ll get dressed, and we can go.”

Nick sat on John’s bed, poised to grab him if he showed any sign of getting up. “Go? Are you kidding me? You’re not going anywhere until the doctor’s seen you, and he might not discharge you.”

“For a few broken bones?” John shook his head. “They won’t keep me in for that. Truth be told, I’m surprised they didn’t kick me out as soon as I came around.”

“I wouldn’t have let them,” Nick said flatly. The hell with cutbacks and bed shortages. There’d been a room free, and John had needed it.

John cocked his head, an amused glint in his eyes. “Aye, you’re feisty when you’re worried, but there’s no need. It throbs a wee bit, but I can thole it.” Dismissing his injury, he beckoned Nick closer. “If I’m not getting tea or my trousers, give me a kiss, then.”

“That you can have,” Nick agreed. He leaned in, careful not to shift the bed any more than necessary, and pressed his mouth to John’s. John’s lips were cool and dry, and when Nick pulled back, he traced them with one finger. “You look tired.”

“I know what tired means,” John said.

“Not in this case.” They’d had this conversation before, and Nick definitely didn’t mean _old_ when he said _tired_. John looked older than he had when they’d met, but Nick didn’t think he’d ever look elderly. He had young eyes, and when he smiled, his whole face lit up from within. “Anyway, you’re entitled under the circumstances.”

“Can’t believe I was so stupid to let that happen.”

“Right, because being able to control what ocean waves do to boats is totally possible.” Nick experienced a rush of gratitude that the accident hadn’t been worse. “You must be hungry. Do you want me to see if I can get you something?”

“I’m sure the nurses will bring me breakfast when they think I’m entitled to it,” John said, pretending to be grumpy, judging by the twinkle in his eyes. “You should be more worried about your empty stomach than mine.”

“I got some snacks last night.” Nick gestured at the windowsill. “Ginger biscuits and chocolate bars. Maybe one of the biscuits?”

It was a measure of how long he’d been here that he didn’t call them cookies even in his head.

“I can try it, but without a cup of tea to wash it down, I’ll likely choke.”

John in a grumpy mood was strangely adorable, fake or real. Nick kissed him again, the scrape of bristles against his skin triggering a need to feel that roughness somewhere else on his body, low down against his stomach or thigh, with John mouthing his cock, knowing how to rouse and satisfy.

“You’re flushed,” John commented when Nick broke the kiss. “They keep it too warm in here. It’s not healthy.”

“That’s not why I’m flushed.” Nick shook his head. “I’m a bad man.”

John tilted his head, studying him with a knowing glint, clearly picking up on what had to be some obvious signals. “Are you, now.”

“Behave,” Nick said as sternly, as if John had been the one thinking inappropriate thoughts, before breaking into a grin. “God, could there be a worse place to feel like this? I blame you.”

“A kirk, a funeral home, at tea with my Aunt Flora... And I’m lying here in striped pajamas two sizes too big, for heaven’s sake.”

“Looking sexy.”

“Not tired?”

“Not tired at all,” Nick said firmly.

His dream receded, brushed aside by the normality of their conversation. The woman forgotten, Nick concentrated on keeping John occupied until the doctor on duty examined him and pronounced him well able to go home.

Of course, that was followed by hours of waiting around for all the proper paperwork to be produced, and before that had happened, Dr. Cameron turned up with the duffel bag Sheila had packed.

“You’re going to hate me,” Nick said, flushed with guilt that he hadn’t thought to call the doctor as soon as they’d been told John wouldn’t have to stay another night.

“Don’t be silly,” Lucy said. “I rang this morning, but I wouldn’t leave you wondering how to get home, and Sheila had already tucked this into the back of my car in the wee hours. There are always supplies and things I can use, and it’s easier to get some of them here than to mail-order them. I’ve plenty to keep me busy until they release you, so don’t fret about how long it takes; that would be wasted effort, trust me.” She glanced at John when she finished. “At least you’ll have a change of clothes.”

“Aye, and I’m grateful for it.” John shifted on the bed and winced when the movement tweaked his hand. “Don’t worry about us. Do what you need to, and I’m sure when you’re done, we’ll still be here waiting for one more signature.” He sounded more tired than annoyed.

“Well, I’ll leave this with you.” Lucy handed the bag to Nick, who didn’t realize until that moment he ought to have offered to take it from her sooner.

“Thank you. You’ve been great. I don’t know what we would have done without you.” He set the bag down on top of the small cupboard next to the window where John’s keys and the clutter from his pockets were haphazardly piled.

“Oh, soldiered on with the help of friends, I’m sure. Don’t forget this is my job.” She patted Nick’s shoulder. “Have them page me if I haven’t turned up again by the time you’re ready to go.”

“We’re lucky in that one,” John said when she’d left. “The doctor we had when I was a boy, och, he’d use a blunt needle out of spite, and the old ways were the best as far as he was concerned. I’m not sure he believed antibiotics worked, and as for a balanced diet, well, he took that to mean an even number of drams a night.”

“Sounds like the kind of man you want to trust your health to,” Nick said drily.

“Aye, well, he retired to live with his daughter in Glasgow, rest his soul.”

Nick snorted with laughter. “I’m assuming he died there? Glasgow’s not that bad.”

“Three years later,” John confirmed. “Mean old bugger probably tried to prescribe Death a dose of calomel because he was looking peaky, and got taken to the other place.”

A nurse popped her head around the door. “You’re all set, Mr. McIntyre. Stop by the desk on your way out, and we’ll page Dr. Cameron for you.”

“Thank the Lord,” John said, his relief vivid and real, judging by the broad grin on his face. He glanced at Nick. “Well? Don’t stand there. Let’s be going.”

“In a hurry?” Nick was amused, but it wasn’t as if he wanted to hang around any longer than necessary. “Hold on. Let me get you your clothes. Unless you want to walk out of here in those pajamas.”

“Knowing hospitals, they won’t let me walk out at all. It’ll be a ride in a wheelchair.” John had swung his legs down off the bed and was waiting expectantly for Nick to dig his clean clothes from the bag.

Nick swore under his breath as he knocked John’s keys behind the cupboard in his haste to find the clothes. “Ugh. Here we go. Jeans, shirt. No underwear.”

“Think I can manage without them. Might need your help doing up the front of the jeans, though.” John grinned as he took the clothes and stood cautiously.

“You might need my help walking to the bathroom,” Nick said, watching him.

“I’m being careful. Something you ought to appreciate.”

“Oh, I do.” Nick waited until John had gone into the bathroom to change, then stuck his hand into the small space to try for the keys. Nope, too narrow. He had to settle for shifting the cupboard, which didn’t weigh much, away from the wall. There was a metallic clatter as the keys fell the rest of the way to the floor, but when Nick picked them up, they were tangled with something else, some kind of fine gold chain.

“Love?” John called, and Nick, fearing John was finding being upright more challenging than he’d realized, shoved the jumble of keys and chain into the duffel bag and went to check on him.

“Okay?”

John grimaced. “Dizzy. Too long spent in bed. It’s passing now.” He cradled his injured hand to his chest.

Suspicion flared when Nick moved to support John, whose cheeks were colorless, his breathing ragged. “Did you knock it?”

Lips compressed, John shook his head. “It’s fine. I maybe jarred it against the sink, nothing more. There isnae room to move in here. Get on with the packing.”

Nick raised his hand to forestall any protests. “You’re letting me help you, and that’s not up for debate. And when we get home, you’re lying down. It can be on the couch, not the bed, but you’re resting.”

It was a measure of John’s discomfort that he didn’t argue.

Chapter Two

The trip back by car and ferry, then car again, seemed endless. John endured the throbbing in his hand stoically, hiding his discomfort because taking painkillers now, on top of everything in his system, would leave him too woozy to walk. He was damned if he was being carried over the threshold like a blushing bride. Always assuming Nick was strong enough to sweep him into his arms. John was lean but no lightweight.

Nick steered around a pothole in the road. “You haven’t said a word since we got off the ferry and said good-bye to Lucy.”

John cleared his throat. “Aye, well, I’ve never been a chatterbox, now, have I?”

“You’re in pain.” Nick’s voice was tight, as if he was suffering too.

A light rain was falling, the deceptive kind that wet a man through to his skin before he noticed. Soft rain. John wondered how long before he felt it on his face again out on the water, a rod in his hand, and the mackerel fighting to be caught. The doctor had refused to hazard a guess as to when he’d be fully healed, but considering it was mid-September, it seemed possible he might be unable to fish until next year. The thought of how limited he’d be frustrated him, and he reminded himself to focus on how lucky he was that he’d likely heal completely. In a few years’ time, the only memory of this injury would be the occasional twinge in cold weather.

The sight of their house—and it was theirs now, not Nick’s, though there’d been a strong element of that for the first few years after he’d moved in—was a relief. That pleasant emotion didn’t last long. Nick insisted on walking him to the door like some kind of invalid, ignoring his insistence that he was fine, perfectly steady; for God’s sake, that was the whole reason he’d not taken the bloody painkillers.

Nick’s reaction to that announcement, which John hadn’t planned on making, was a grim expression as he left John on the couch and returned out into the rain to get their things from the car. He was gone long enough to make John feel guilty and came back in, tucking his damp hair behind his ears.

“Where are they?” Nick asked.

It took a moment for John to realize what Nick meant. “The painkillers? In that bag of things from the hospital, the white paper one.”

“What do you want to take them with? Water? Tea?”

John sighed, resigned to the fogging of his head. “Water, then tea. I’ve a thirst on me for some reason.”

“Aftereffects of the anesthetic, maybe. I could look that up. See if there’s anything to fix it.” Nick glanced around vaguely, as if expecting his laptop to materialize.

“There is. Water and tea. I’d add whiskey to the list, but I know I canna have it, so don’t glare at me.”

It struck him how exhausted Nick looked. Damn his clumsiness. It had hurt more than him and would make their lives complicated for a good while, what with visits to the doctor and the exercises he was supposed to do when the bones healed.

Sipping his tea ten minutes later, basking in the relief from pain as the drugs reduced the throb in his hand from agonizing to bearable, he listened to the messages on the answerphone. After heated debate, the island had agreed to a fifty-foot mast allowing mobile phones to work. John had refused to get a mobile, along with many islanders. The landline was good enough for him, and even with the mast, reception was spotty at best. Nick had returned from a trip away with a smartphone, of all the ridiculous names, but after a while it’d been relegated to a drawer, the battery dead.

“Half the island called,” he commented. “They’re worried about you.”

“Well, they can stop. There’s nothing wrong with me a bit of time won’t cure. What are you doing in there?” Nick was banging around in the kitchen, and John couldn’t see what he was up to.

A moment later Nick appeared in the doorway, wiping his hands on a towel. “Trying to figure out what we’re going to have for tea. I planned a trip to the store yesterday afternoon and didn’t end up managing it, so...”

“I don’t care about food,” John said. He set down his mug. “Come sit with me.”

Nick obeyed without protest. It occurred to John he was likely to get away with all sorts of requests over the next few weeks if he chose to take advantage of his injury. Not that he would, of course. It was an idle thought.

“I don’t know where to sit so I don’t hurt you,” Nick said, settling down tentatively .

“Get comfortable, and I’ll sort out the rest. I’ve an idea you’ll do well as a pillow.” He waited until Nick had leaned back, then draped himself against Nick’s familiar side and exhaled in an attempt to release the tension he’d been carrying around for the past twenty-four hours.

“Shh. It’s okay. Sleep a little bit if you can,” Nick suggested. He stroked John’s hair comfortingly.

Sleeping didn’t appeal, but somehow between one breath and the next he succumbed to the demands of his stressed body and slid under.

A sound woke him, unfamiliar, insistent. Nick lay beside him, snoring lightly, but when John nudged him he stirred and muttered, “What is it?” in an indistinct, run- together mumble.

“Music.” John frowned, trying to place the strident, repetitive tune. “It’s your damn phone. Those things are a pain in the arse.”

“Can’t be. Battery’s dead. I haven’t charged it in weeks.” Nick sat up, listening. “Yeah, you’re right, though.”

“Find it. Answer it. Tell them to go away.”

“Bossy today, aren’t you? God, why is it still ringing?” Nick heaved himself to his feet and stretched tall and long, exposing his lower back to John’s appreciative gaze before ambling off to the huge dresser along the back wall of the room.

Its shelves, drawers, and cupboards were cluttered and crammed, yes, but John and Nick knew where everything was, so to John’s mind, at least, it was tidy.

His mother didn’t see it the same way.

Nick was rummaging in the top dresser drawer, some random papers falling to the floor as he found the phone. “Yes, hello?” He sounded so American in that moment, John was reminded of the days when he’d been both a stranger and someone who’d stepped into the empty space in John’s heart, filling it perfectly and making him whole.

Good Lord, painkillers brought out his romantic streak. He didn’t have time to indulge it; Nick turned toward him, face clear in the dimming light as the sun set, but his dazed expression making it obvious he was a thousand miles away.

“I’m sorry. I think you have the wrong number.” It was an automatic response from someone barely paying attention.

John knew Nick too intimately to think that was what was happening here, even on painkillers that made his head spin. He pushed himself up onto the elbow of his uninjured arm. “Nick?”

Nick shook his head. Any good the nap had done was wiped away, leaving his features pinched with stress. “Who are you looking for?” The person on the other end of the line said something, and he responded, “No, I’m sorry. He isn’t here.”

“Nick.” John half got up, and Nick made no move to stop him.

“You have the wrong number. I can’t help you.” Nick’s voice shook with emotion, though John couldn’t pin it down. Anger? Fear? “I can’t help you. I’m sorry. I can’t.” He tapped the screen to end the call and stood there looking at the phone as if it might tell him what to do next: set it down, drop it to the floor, throw it against the wall. “It’s fine,” he said before John asked him what the bloody hell was going on. “Wrong number.”

“And who was on the other end? Satan?”

“What? No, don’t be silly. It was...” Nick set the phone down on the dresser carefully, positioning it just so. “A woman.”

“And was she angry with you for not being the right person?” John had dealt with people like that, who saw their failure to dial a number correctly as his fault.

Hysteria edged Nick’s laugh, making it uncomfortable to hear. “Was she was angry? Yeah, you could say that.”

“Nick, love, don’t make me drag it out of you.” He turned over possibilities in his head. These days there was hardly anyone on the island who cared he and Nick were a couple. Times had changed, faster than he could ever have imagined as a teenager growing up with the closet door locked and bolted. It was unlikely to be someone giving them grief for being gay, and Nick would’ve taken that in his stride anyway.

That left one possibility.

The strange shadowy world Nick walked in sometimes had affected their lives often in the past, but it’d been over a year since the last ghost had troubled Nick. There were advantages to living on a remote island with a small population.

“It’s fine,” Nick said again. “I’ll take care of it later. Let me make you a fresh cup of tea.” He came closer to get John’s cup, and John, moving quickly, caught hold of the hem of his shirt.

“I don’t want tea,” he said firmly. “Who was she trying to call, do you think?”

Nick shook his head, but he didn’t pull away. “Someone named Gareth. I don’t know if she believed I wasn’t him. Maybe he had that phone number before me. Or she wrote it down wrong?” He didn’t sound convincing or convinced.

“Or she was looking for help and knew you were the one who could help her.”

“Well, she’ll have to wait.” Nick untangled John’s fingers from his hem and tangled his with them instead. “The doctor said you should make sure to eat while you’re on those painkillers. I think there’s some soup in the back of the freezer, leftovers from that huge pot we made the weekend before last.”

“The beef and barley? That’d be all right.” John wasn’t a bit hungry, but he’d manage something if it made Nick feel better.

“I’ll get—” Nick broke off in the middle of whatever he’d been about to say when they heard a loud knock at the door.

Nick jumped. John saw the quick, violent shudder that followed it, as if Nick had been drenched in filthy, freezing water. John rose from the couch, ignoring his dizziness, and was by Nick’s side a heartbeat later, wrapping his left arm around Nick in a tight, comforting hug before going to answer the door.

He reached it as it opened. No one locked their doors much on the island, especially not once the tourist season was over, and by autumn it mostly was. For someone to walk in uninvited meant it was family or a friend and no cause for alarm. He had a vague notion ghosts couldn’t cross a threshold—no, that was vampires.

With a head shake at his silliness, he plastered a smile on his face for Sheila, who breezed past him, already talking, her red hair spangled with moisture. Still raining, then.

“This casserole is still hot and heavy too, so don’t be getting in my way, there’s a love.”

“Oh God, did you bring us food? You’re my new favorite person,” Nick said. Then he pressed a kiss to John’s temple. “Would you please go sit down? Or sit here at the kitchen table, I don’t care.”

John preferred to stay if it meant things seeming more normal, so he lowered himself onto one of the kitchen chairs and watched while Sheila bustled about, first setting the covered casserole dish down on the hob, then checking inside the oven to make sure it was empty.

“Now, I can put it in to keep warm if you’re not hungry at the moment, but it’ll dry out if you leave it more than an hour or so. In that case it’s best off in the refrigerator, and you can reheat it for forty minutes till it’s good and hot.” Sheila looked at them expectantly, awaiting an answer.

“I think it’s safe to say we’re hungry,” Nick told her. “Will you stay and eat with us? Can I make you a cup of tea?”

She shook her head. “Thanks, but no. I’ve a mountain of knitting to work on if I’m going to have sweaters finished for all the children by Christmas, and Michael will be home in half an hour wanting his dinner.”

“It was good of you to do this.” John would’ve been surprised if she hadn’t, and he was expecting more offerings from people, as if being down to three hands between the pair of them rendered them incapable of cooking, which wasn’t the case. It didn’t mean he was unappreciative. Sheila was a busy woman, and adding another task to her crowded day was likely to leave her stretched for time.

“Och, it’s nothing.” She waved away Nick’s thanks too. “How’s the hand?” “I’ll live.”

“It will heal?”

The anxiety imperfectly disguised by casualness didn’t escape John.

“It will, and good as new,” he assured her. “If my mother’s fretting, you can pass that on.”

Sheila relaxed, the mild tension she’d been trying to hide—mostly with success— melting away. “You’re too clever for your own good, John McIntyre.”

“Not a bit. I’ve been my mother’s son my whole life. It’d be a sad state of affairs if I didn’t know what she was like by now, wouldn’t it?” The edges of his vision went blurry, warning him he’d been too generous where the painkillers were concerned. He hadn’t taken more than the prescribed dose, but they tended to hit him hard. Nick, ever watchful, stepped closer and laid a warm hand on the back of his neck, grounding him.

“I’ll bring the casserole dish back tomorrow, shall I?” Nick asked Sheila, but she shook her head again and turned toward the door.

“I’ll have Michael fetch it tomorrow or the day after. He’ll want to see for himself that this one’s all right. Try to get some rest, both of you. I’ve seen livelier corpses.” She went out without another word, shutting the door behind her.

“Let’s get some food into you while you’re still conscious,” Nick suggested and moved to dish up the casserole.

John leaned back into the chair, letting it do its job of holding him upright. “Did she say what it is?”

“No.” Nick examined the large spoonful he’d put onto a plate more carefully. “Potatoes, peas, brown gravy. Some kind of meat—your guess is better than mine.”

“Probably lamb,” John said. “It smells lovely, but I’m not a bit hungry.” He sounded as regretful as he felt; he knew he wouldn’t manage more than a few mouthfuls.

“You have to eat. It’s not optional.”

Patting his stomach, despite knowing it was flat, John said, “It’ll do me good to miss a meal.”

“In what universe do you need to lose weight? Taking painkillers on an empty stomach is a terrible idea. Try some. Please.”

“Not telling me about your new friend if she calls again is a worse one.” John tapped his plate. “I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll try to eat, though I warn you it won’t be much, and I’ll rest. And you know what I want in return.”

“I won’t hide from you, but this is— There’s nothing you can do, John.” Nick scrubbed at his face with his hands, voice ragged. “She wants something, and I have to solve the puzzle, or I’ll get no peace and neither will she. And each time I do it, I think it’s the last, and it never is.”

That was a wish and a hope John shared. He reached across the table and took Nick’s hand, enduring the discomfort when Nick closed his fingers painfully tight, clinging like a drowning man. “You’ll help her, the way you always do. And I’ll help you any way I can, any way you need me. We’ll get through it.”

“I know.” It was the kind of thing Nick said unthinkingly, an empty reassurance meant to convince John but not himself. He let go of John’s good hand with reluctance and gestured at the plate. “I’ll try, but you have to eat.”

John put a bite of potatoes and lamb into his mouth and chewed obediently. It tasted fine—Sheila was a good cook, though baking was her true specialty—and it wasn’t that his stomach was upset from the pills. His appetite was missing for some reason. “You should have some too,” he pointed out, and Nick rose to put some on a second plate without argument.

“Is the medicine working?” he asked as he sat again.

“It’s nice,” John said. “Kills the pain, makes me think of other things.”

“So pretty much doing what it’s supposed to do.” Nick flexed his left hand, then turned it, as if looking for evidence of the long-ago car crash that had left him with a broken wrist. “You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

“I heal fast.” Likely there’d be residual stiffness and some loss of dexterity for a while, but he’d work around it. His job involved driving, taking tourists around the island, and he could manage that fine. Not being able to grip a tiny screw or handle a knife with precision would be annoying, but the doctor had seemed confident about his recovery, and he had no reason to doubt her. “I’ll run a bath and soak, then have an early night, I think.”

“A bath?” Nick shook his head. “You can’t get those bandages wet. And I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be climbing in and out of the tub if you’re woozy. It’s not safe.”

Pleased Nick’s attention was firmly on him and not on whoever the ghost was or what it wanted, John smiled. “It will be if you’re in there with me, lending a helping hand.”

“Which I’ll agree to,” Nick said after a moment’s thought, “if you finish your meal.”

“Half and not a mouthful more.” John was serious. “We’re not arguing about this.” They’d had discussions before in which he’d drawn a line in the sand. He’d tolerate loving concern, but there was a point where concern tipped over into mothering, and as much as he knew Nick didn’t mean it that way, he’d had enough of that for one lifetime.

“Okay .”

They finished as much of their food as they could, and Nick went upstairs to run the bath. The sound of him walking overhead, the creak and rumble of the tap, was so familiar John would have recognized it in his sleep. Or, indeed, in a daze of pain medication, for which he was grateful.

After a night in hospital, sinking down into the tub full of hot water felt wonderful. Even the necessity of keeping his bandaged hand raised couldn’t ruin it. “God, I needed this.”

“I don’t know how we’ll manage to wash your hair,” Nick said with regret. He was standing naked beside the bath, clearly contemplating how he was going to fit himself into the tub.

“Don’t bother. It’ll wait a day.” John kept his hair short so that when it needed washing, it took a minute or two, no longer, and a quick scrub with a towel to dry it, but that small effort seemed daunting tonight. “I’ll stick my head under the tap tomorrow.”

The bath was an old-fashioned one, deep but narrow. Pragmatism usually won out over romance, and they bathed separately, but John had fond memories of the two of them sharing it on occasion. Most recently, they’d layered towels on the floor to soak up the inevitable overflow, and Nick had positioned himself between John’s legs, head resting on John’s shoulder. John had taken a soapy hand to all of Nick he could reach and brought him off with slow strokes, sliding his cock against Nick’s back until the water had clouded with their joint release.

“You promised you’d come in with me,” John reminded him now, needing him close. “We left space at the top so we wouldn’t flood the floor.”

“I know, but that was before I realized how complicated it would be. Your dressing needs to stay dry.”

Without moving, John said, “If you’re not getting in, I’m getting out.”

“I’m getting in! I’m getting in!” Nick frowned and stepped into the tub gingerly, facing John. “Don’t let me bump your hand, okay?”

“Aye, I’ll keep it out of your way, you being so clumsy and all,” John grumbled as Nick lowered himself to a seated position, feet on either side of John’s hips. “There, was that so hard?”

Nick leaned back and patted John’s knee. “No. But this is supposed to be relaxing for you, not an exercise in how to fit two grown men into a bathtub designed for one.”

“We’ve done it before,” John pointed out.

“Not when one of us was hurt.”

“I want you close.” Sex wasn’t on his mind right then, but the view of Nick’s body, wavering as the water rippled, lured his thoughts in what the minister would likely call a wanton direction. Not that John had listened to a sermon in the past decade or so. “Hurt or not, that never changes.”

Nick cast a glance downward at John’s rapidly thickening cock. “I can see something is. John, you know I’d never turn you down, but—”

Resting his head on the edge of the bath, John closed his eyes. “You’re naked in the bath with me. If I didn’t get hard, you’d have cause to worry, because I’d be dead or dying.”

“So it’s a theoretical erection?”

Hearing the amusement in Nick’s voice, John cracked open his eyes and caught sight of a grin. “As opposed to one with a practical use? I wouldnae say _that_.”

“I can’t make love to you when you’re in pain.”

Aye, but you’re tempted, John thought. Through one cause and another, it’d been a week since they’d enjoyed each other, and for them that was a long while.

“Right now, the pain’s so far away some poor soul in Edinburgh is probably wondering why his hand hurts. It’ll come back, but for now I’m not aching anywhere but here.” He brushed his fingers over the head of his cock, which was poking out of the water, flushed darkly from the heat.

“I’m impressed you can get hard, considering the stuff you’re on. It’s been a long time since I broke my wrist, but I can remember what the heavy-duty meds were like. Sometimes I could barely focus my eyes.” Nick’s gaze was focused now, and he stared openly as John idly encircled his shaft in a loose grip.

“I wish I’d known you then. I’d have taken care of you.”

“I needed someone to take care of me. I still did by the time I came to Traighshee, and here you were. It was like you were waiting for me.” Nick lifted his gaze to John’s face, and John licked his lips.

“Here I am,” he agreed. “Waiting for you.” He knew it wasn’t what Nick meant, but that didn’t matter. They understood each other, and Nick wouldn’t say no to him now when the heat between them had little to do with the steaming bathwater.

“God, I love you,” Nick said and slid closer, pushing John’s hand away from his cock to take hold of it himself, pressing his lips to John’s in a kiss that promised more.

Nick was partly right; John’s arousal was as distant as the pain to a certain extent. Under any other circumstances sex would’ve been far down the list. But Nick’s haunted eyes during and after the phone call made him want to put his hand on his man and claim him.

_Mine. Not yours, you clamoring wee nuisance of a ghost. Mine._

Responding to Nick’s words with actions, John parted his lips, encouraging Nick to taste him, the soft flicker of Nick’s tongue against his grounding him in the moment. He took his hand lower and cupped Nick’s arse, the water-slick skin pleasantly smooth against his palm. They knew the steps to this dance.

He let Nick lead, the slosh of water lapping against the side of the bath the only sound beyond their increasingly labored breathing. Nick drew him close to a climax with deft strokes, leaving John trembling, longing for more, but reluctant for it to end.

And wasn’t that always the way?

He nuzzled into Nick’s shoulder, digging in his teeth gently to spark arousal, not pain, the hard thrust of Nick’s erection matching his. He couldn’t touch it with his hand where it was, but Nick seemed content to rub off on John while stroking his cock.

A sweet, hot tingle in his balls warned him he was about to spill. He grunted, lost in sensation, then yelled out in shock when the bathwater went from warm to freezing in the space of a breath.

“Jesus! What the— Out. Get out, but don’t get your hand wet. _God_.” Nick continued talking as he helped John out of the icy water, their teeth chattering. He wrapped a towel around John’s shoulders before grabbing one for himself. “It’s her. Shit, it must be. I’d forgotten they could do that. It’s been so long. I’m so sorry.”

John did his best to scrub some of the water from his skin with only one functional hand. “Why? It isnae your fault.”

“I should have known she could, though.” Nick shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “She was mad on the phone. I mean, sad too, I think, but mostly angry, and this is a common reaction, messing around with the temperature of the air or water. Are you okay?”

“My heart didn’t stop from the shock, so aye, I think so.” John tried to inject some humor into his voice to reassure Nick. “She’s here, then?”

“Unless the laws of physics have changed and the temperature of water can drop like that naturally, I assume so. I don’t know where, though. Come on, let’s get you to the bedroom and dried off. Being in here with all this tile and cast iron is freaking me out.”

Nick guided him toward the doorway, and John thought it best not to argue. He was glad of Nick’s supportive arm around his waist as they made their way into the bedroom.

They dressed quickly, tugging on jeans and sweatshirts. John needed the warmth, and his skin crawled at the thought of the ghost seeing him naked. Jesus, it might be someone he’d known since childhood. He cast his mind back for recent or traumatic deaths on the island and came up empty.

“We need to know who she is and why she’s here with us.” John rolled his shoulders, still unnerved by their unwanted visitor. “It’s been bloody years since we had one in the house with us. There _are_ no more here. You’ve cleared the place.”

“They’re not like an infestation of ants, you know.” Nick scratched his head above his ear. “Yeah, I don’t see it being someone who died on our land. Maybe someone we knew?”

“Aye, but who? The last death was auld Jennie McAllister, and she passed peacefully in her sleep three years ago and at the other end of the island. We’re a healthy lot here.”

And the population was dwindling as the youngsters moved to the mainland in search of jobs, but he didn’t say that aloud.

People moved. Could ghosts?

“Someone who followed us home?” he suggested. “Latched on to us along the way? Drowned in the ocean?”

“It could be any of those,” Nick said thoughtfully. He sat on the edge of the bed and caught at John’s sleeve to tow him closer. “I don’t think she knows what she’s doing or what’s happening. She sounded so disoriented, and the times I’ve—” He broke off, his eyes widening. “The temperature-dropping thing, it’s usually followed by—”

The bedroom door slammed shut with enough force the house trembled.

Nick clutched at John and pulled him down onto the bed. “Stay here. I don’t know what she has planned.” Glass shattered on the other side of the door, maybe in the bathroom—a window? The mirror? It was impossible to know—then John heard loud thuds like footsteps going down the staircase. Nick tugged free of John’s grasp and went to the door slowly, uncertain.

“If I have to stay here, you bloody well do too,” John said, following him. “And since you’re not, you’ll have company.”

Chapter Three

Nick welcomed John’s company, but if he could’ve locked John in their bedroom and ensured his safety, he would’ve turned the key without hesitating. Logic told him a door was no barrier to a ghost, and John would most likely have kicked it down if he thought Nick needed his help.

Which he didn’t. Quieting a restless spirit was strictly a solo chore. John had glimpsed and heard spirits under unusual circumstances—not that there was ever a routine haunting—but in general he was blind and deaf when it came to ghosts.

The landing was empty, the stairs clear. Holding his breath until he became light- headed, Nick made his way into the large front room. The duffel with their clothing in it was on the floor, forgotten in their homecoming. As he watched, it rose to waist height, then was torn open, the contents exploding outward, whirling around like leaves in an autumnal gale.

Nick threw up his hands to shield his face, but abruptly the contents of the bag fell to the floor.

“And what the hell was that in aid of?” John demanded. “How is she doing that?”

“No idea. I mean, how they ever do it, I guess.” Nick was more focused on what she might do next than how. If she got it into her head to start throwing around heavy objects... But no. Any lingering sense of her was gone. “I think she’s done.” It was common for ghosts to take energy where they could—the heat from the bathwater, for example—and use it up, then require time to regroup.

“Done slamming doors and throwing things?” John sank down onto Nick’s least favorite chair, bandaged hand carefully cradled in his lap.

“For now.” Nick wondered how long they had until she started up again. “I don’t think you should stay here tonight. Your sister—”

“No,” John said firmly, interrupting him. “Stop right there, and I’m not arguing about whether Janet, my mum, or Michael would be glad to have me in an emergency— ”

“Which this is.”

“What part of ‘not arguing about this’ did you not understand?” John stood again, frowning, so determined and stubborn it made Nick’s heart swell with love for him. “We’ve been through this before, together. And we’ll get through it again. There’s no chance in a thousand I’ll agree to you sending me away.”

Nick sighed and bent down to pick up the nearest piece of clothing. It was the shirt John had been wearing the day before, its sleeve cuff stained with blood that would never come out now that it had dried. “You know it’s not that I don’t want you here. You _know_ that.”

“Aye, I do. And this is my home. Our home. We belong here. It—she—doesn’t. I won’t leave because of a woman in a bad temper.”

“It’s more than that.” He couldn’t say how he knew, but he did. Fear and grief, anger and unfinished business...they left a different taste, sounded different notes. “She’s confused and expressing it badly, but under it there’s this deep sorrow and shock. She doesn’t understand something, can’t accept it.”

“And she thinks you’ve got answers? How can you when you don’t know who she is?”

A glint of metal caught Nick’s gaze, a thin chain tangled around a button. He worked it free, staring at it. Like tumblers clicking in a lock, he made the connection. “This was there. At the hospital. I picked it up, and you called for help, and I forgot it. Shoved it in the bag and forgot it. Shit. It’s my fault. I brought her here.”

“What do you mean, brought her?”

“It’s the only thing that makes any sense. She’s tied to this somehow—I don’t think it happens often, but in this case...maybe she died at the hospital, this was abandoned, and no one found it until this morning.” It seemed impossible it had been only this morning. “I knocked your keys onto the floor, and when I picked them up, this came with it. It must have been hers. God, I’m such an idiot! How did it take me so long to realize?” He never found it easy to forgive himself for a mistake, and this was such a serious situation he didn’t deserve forgiveness.

“What is it? Give it here.” John gestured impatiently, and Nick started to give it to him as a reflex before stopping himself.

“No. You’re safer if you don’t touch it.”

“Well, looking’s safe. What is it, jewelry?”

He nodded. “A gold chain. At least, it looks like gold. And I took it from the hospital, and her ghost right along with it. _Stupid_.”

“Yes, because picking up something to give back to its owner is a terrible way to behave.” John shook his head, his exasperation plain. “For all you knew, it belonged to someone in there for...for hiccups, who went home the next day.”

“Hiccups?” Nick blinked at him. “I don’t think— Never mind. Okay, point taken, but—”

“And now we know where we are.” John was trying not to let Nick blame himself for this or get sidetracked by what-ifs, Nick could tell. “She was in that room and recently enough that you’re the first person to find that wee bit of metal.”

“Or I was meant to find it, and it’s been there years.”

“They’d painted the walls last summer. I know the man who did it. Robbie Sinclair. He’s doing well for himself these days. Employs five men, and he bid on the contract and won it. Used to live here on the island, but he moved to Mull five years back. You don’t remember him?”

“No, or only vaguely. I’ll take your word for it.” Nick glanced around, the necklace dangling from his fingers. “I don’t know where to put this.”

“Anywhere but around your neck. I won’t touch it; I promise.”

“Good.” He’d have to find somewhere to hide it to be on the safe side.

The phone rang, and he jumped before he realized it was the house phone and not the cell.

“Someone checking on you, I’m sure,” he said and went to get it. “Hello?”

“Nick! It’s Janet. How’s himself, then? Is he in a lot of pain?” Janet’s voice was full of sympathy, and she was clearly anxious to talk to her brother.

“He’s okay. Here, let me put him on, and he can tell you all about the wonders of modern pharmaceuticals.” Nick held the phone out toward John, mind caught up in the unexpected opportunity. “Your sister. I’m going to run out to the car for my coat. I’ll only be a minute.”

Of course, his actual plan had little to do with retrieving his jacket from the backseat. Nick popped open the glove box and tucked the fine gold chain inside. John would never think to look there, and hopefully they’d be safe in the house tonight so they could get some much-needed sleep.

* * * * * 

Ironically, even with no visits from the ghost, he didn’t sleep well. John was restless without waking from his drugged sleep, pain surfacing, Nick guessed, and forced to sleep on his back, making snoring inevitable. Toward dawn, Nick slipped out of bed and went downstairs. He brewed a strong mug of tea and stood at the kitchen window, staring out. The sun rose, illuminating a carpet of mist over the dew-wet grass, an unearthly sight. He reached over the sink and opened the window, then took a deep breath of fall air. Few trees on the island—no raking and no rich scent rising from piles of leaves, but it still smelled of autumn.

Solstice tonight. Nick wondered if that would strengthen the ghost. He’d never made his mind up about his abilities and the ghosts he dealt with. Were they part and parcel of the real world, if hidden from most people, or proof of all manner of supernatural possibilities?

In the end, it only mattered that he could see and help them.

He sipped his tea, gaze on the car. Time to find out more about the owner of the necklace. In the still hush of the early morning, rushing seemed unnecessary. He had the whole day to research and make calls. Nick tipped the last of his tea away and turned to the table where his laptop waited.

That way of thinking was tempting but dangerous. He wanted this over and done with. Their lives back to normal.

A quick search yielded nothing helpful, and he had to assume it was either because he didn’t know where to look or because the information he needed was inaccessible to him. Presumably you had to be a doctor to access hospital records, and it would seem that local papers didn’t find deaths that took place in hospitals to be newsworthy. None of that should have come as a surprise, but it was still frustrating, and Nick was trying to think of anyone they knew who could get them the information they needed when he heard sounds of life from upstairs.

Footsteps shuffling across the hallway from the bedroom to the bathroom, water being run in the sink. He flicked the switch on the kettle and went to check on John.

John was rinsing his toothbrush when Nick paused outside the bathroom. “Before you ask, it feels like I got run over by a truck. Well, my hand does. Are those painkillers still downstairs?”

“Yeah. I can bring them up if you want to go back to bed?” If John was requesting the pain pills, that had to mean he was feeling it. Nick would have to bring up a glass with the pill bottle, since the ghost had broken the one they’d kept at the sink, leaving him to clean up the mess the night before. “Maybe some tea and toast?”

“Don’t think I could sleep anymore,” John grumbled, shaking his head. “Tea sounds good.”

The island ran on tea and whiskey, it seemed to Nick. Sometimes both in the same cup, though he’d never acquired the taste for laced hot drinks himself.

“I can’t find her,” he told John after John had drunk two mugs of tea and put away an egg on toast, his appetite returning when the painkillers kicked in.

“Well, maybe you’re not looking in the right place.” Pushing his plate away and smothering a burp, John seemed his usual self if Nick overlooked the bandaged hand. “Or asking the right people.”

“The hospital won’t release details, and I can’t find anything in the papers online.”

“We’re looking for a woman who died in that room—”

“Not necessarily,” Nick interrupted. “Maybe she was visiting someone. All we know is the necklace was hers.”

“Men wear chains around their necks too. I’ve seen them.”

Nick tried and failed to picture John wearing anything around his neck but a scarf, or a tie when he was forced to by the occasion. “I spoke to her, remember? Definitely female.”

“Oh, right.” John thought for a moment. “Let me make a few phone calls. I might be able to come up with something.”

“Are you sure you’re up for it? I could do it, if you helped me make a list.” Not that Nick was particularly crazy about the idea of calling a bunch of strangers, which most of them would be, but he didn’t want John to overdo it. He’d been in the hospital less than twenty-four hours before, after all.

“I’m not so injured I can’t manage some calls. Especially if you get me comfortably settled on the sofa and bring me the phone.” John gave him a self-satisfied look, clearly aware Nick wouldn’t argue with him.

They got John what he needed; then Nick did the washing up while John made his calls. Nick was able to listen in here and there over the splashing of the water but was unable to figure out if John was making any headway. By the time he was done and had gone back into the living room, drying his hands on a towel, John wasn’t on the phone anymore.

“Any luck?” Nick asked.

“Depends on how you define the word. The closest I got was the number of someone who works at the hospital who might know something, and when I called her, it went straight to voice mail. I left a message.” John had scribbled some notes down on a pad of paper, and the phone rested on his thigh. “I spoke with someone at the hospital, but apparently there are all sorts of legal implications to sharing patients’ private information.”

“I told you—” Nick broke off. “Okay, that’s the most irritating thing I could say, so consider it never said.”

John smiled at him with nothing but affection visible. “Done. Now come over here. I haven’t kissed you this morning, and until I get one, I’m on strike.”

“Threats and coercion?” Nick pursed his lips. “I should stand firm on principle, but I think I’ll cave.”

“Good decision.”

Kissing John was always a pleasure, but aware of an injured hand to avoid, Nick couldn’t lose himself in the familiar taste and feel of John’s lips. After a minute, he pulled back, grimacing apologetically. “Sorry. Distracted by this.” He brushed the edge of the bandage, stark white against John’s weather-beaten skin. “Call it an opening negotiation, not a settlement.”

“I seem to remember you had a poorly arm when we first met, and it didn’t stop us kissing then.”

“Nothing short of a meteorite landing beside us would’ve done that. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” Nick leaned in and kissed John again, putting every ounce of love he had for the man into it. “Still true.”

“And always will be.” John grinned at him, then yawned.

“I’ll try not to take that personally, shall I?” Nick picked up the pad of paper and moved it aside. “You need some more sleep.”

“I slept for ten hours last night,” John protested, but he didn’t look convinced by his words.

“But half that the night before, and you’re healing. And probably still have anesthesia running around inside you.” That wasn’t a pleasant thought. “What’s the harm in a little nap?”

“No harm, I suppose.” John yawned again and shifted on the sofa. “As long as I don’t have to go anywhere. I can sleep here, can’t I?”

“Of course. Let me grab you a blanket so you won’t be cold.” By the time Nick had retrieved the blanket, draped over a nearby chair, and turned back to the sofa, John’s eyes were already closed. Nick tucked the blanket over him tenderly, being sure not to jostle his injured hand, and resisted the urge to kiss his brow.

The next hour passed quietly. He fielded a call from John’s mom, who was down with a heavy cold and fretting because she wanted to see with her own eyes that John was fine.

“Well, I’ll drive him over later, if you like,” Nick offered, only to be told the last thing John wanted was to pick up her germs, and did he have any common sense at all?

Grinning, he soothed her, promising to take care of her son to the best of his ability. Their relationship was an odd one. She liked him, at least he thought she did, and she seemed to have accepted that John was gay, but there were moments when tension flared between the two of them, leaving John in the middle. He’d learned not to take it personally and to give her some space.

With an eye to lunch, he studied the contents of the fridge and decided shopping was needed. One trip to stock up and they could spend a few quiet days at home. John healed fast and had energy to spare; he needed to shake off the drugs swimming through his system, that was all.

There was a quiet knock on the door, and Nick moved to greet whoever it was. It turned out to be Janet, smiling brightly and carrying a bowl covered by a cloth napkin. “It’s some scones,” she explained. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. John’s having a bit of a nap on the sofa.”

She set the bowl down on the table and nodded. “That’s good. Sleep’s what he needs. I’m sure you’ll be needing some too, after a night at the hospital.”

“I’m already caught up.” He glanced toward the living room, thinking. “Any chance you have forty minutes or so to hang out here? I need to grab some things at the store, and I hate to leave him. I mean, he’s okay, but in case he needs something.”

Janet checked her watch. “Of course. I’ll make myself a cup of tea, and another for him if he gets up, and I’ve a book in the car. You do whatever you need to, and I’ll be here when you get back.”

“You’re a lifesaver. An angel. A—”

“I’m family,” she corrected him with a smile whose shape he’d seen echoed on John’s face a thousand times. “Be off with you, then. We can’t have you starving.”

With a nod at the food she’d brought, he said, “I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Och, they’re nothing but a snack.”

She all but pushed him through the door, making no move to follow him and retrieve her book. Since the sight of her sitting in idleness in the middle of the day would’ve shocked anyone who knew her, it didn’t surprise him. He suspected as soon as he’d driven out of sight, she’d begin an onslaught on the kitchen, scrubbing down surfaces with a brisk economy of movement.

Sunlight, rich and golden, made the island a paradise. Heather and bracken covered the earth, and the low mountains swept up to touch the pale-blue sky. Nick lowered the car windows and breathed deeply of crisp air carrying the sound of the waves to him even over the noise of the engine. Days like this were too precious to waste, and he hated to think of John sleeping through it. If he wasn’t hurt, he’d have been out on the water fishing for their supper or in the garden harvesting the last of the vegetables. Their pantry had a shelf of jam and pickles to give their winter meals sweetness and tang, and the barn held sacks of potatoes and strings of onions hanging from the rafters.

He arrived at a crossroads. To the right was the town, to the left the docks, and straight on took him along the coastal path looping around the island. Flicking his indicator to the right, he slowed down, wary of a bunch of sheep in two minds about staying safely in the heather or making a dash for the other side.

The sheep, apparently taking advantage of his hesitation, moved rapidly into the road, then through a gap in the wall and out of sight. Grateful he’d listened to his instincts, Nick continued, turning right and heading into town. He hadn’t seen another car yet and rarely did at this time of year until he’d reached the town itself. The island didn’t have all that many yearlong residents, and 90 percent of the tourists had headed for greener and warmer pastures when summer ended. More people lived on the other side of town than on their side.

There was plenty of room to park in the small lot beside the equally small supermarket, and when Nick went inside the building—free of piped music, thank God—Padraig Dunn greeted him warmly. Padraig’s father, George, had worked the cash register during Nick’s early time on Traighshee and had died four years ago of cancer. He hadn’t been one of Nick’s favorite people, full of prejudice and bitter words, and Nick was relieved he’d lain quietly in his grave. That was one ghost he’d resent helping.

Padraig, on the other hand, seemed well suited to his job, always offering a smile and happy to special-order the occasional item from America when Nick found himself desperate for a taste of home. “Nick, there you are. How’s John, then?”

“He’s okay, thanks. I need to pick up a few things to get us through the next couple of days. I won’t be long.” Nick walked down one of the narrow aisles with Padraig at his heels.

“You should have rung. I’d have been happy to make a delivery under the circumstances.”

Nick shook his head. “It’s fine. The fresh air is doing me good, and Janet’s keeping him company. Do you have any of those new biscuits with the jam in the middle?”

“That we do.” He winked. “Maybe I should sell you two packets. I know John’s sweet tooth; you’ll be lucky to get a crumb.”

Smiling, Nick said, “One is fine, but I’ll make sure he shares.”

He didn’t linger, but it was impossible to rush with everyone he saw pausing to ask after John and that inquiry leading to a more general conversation with those people he knew well. When he returned to the car, an hour had passed, and he drove home with less regard for the scenery and more for making good time.

At the junction where a turn would take him to the docks, a ferry lying in wait— small at this distance—the car jerked sideways. Nick braked, cursing under his breath. Had he hit a pothole? He drove on a few yards, slowing to a crawl, and this time the wheel spun in his hands, directing the car to the right and the ferry instead of left to home.

“No!” Nick said sharply, realization dawning. The necklace. Shit. He hadn’t forgotten it was in the car, more overlooked the potential for the ghost to interfere with the short journey. “I’m going back to John. I’ll walk if I have to.”

The door locks snapped into place, and the accelerator pedal went from resting under his sneaker to pressed down as far as it would go. It happened in the blink of an eye, the car already hurtling down the slight hill toward the ferry before Nick grasped what was happening. He jammed his foot onto the brake, sending it to the floor with strength fueled by panic, but no amount of strength would have been sufficient to stop the car’s trajectory.

“Stop,” he said, jaw clenched, his face frozen with shock. “Stop!” He searched for the perfect words to persuade an angry and determined ghost to relent and came out with, “I won’t help you!”

Even he didn’t think that would work.

The car hurtled forward, gaining momentum. Nick shoved harder with his foot, thigh muscles trembling with the effort, and struggled to open the driver’s-side door, scrabbling at the lock with shaking fingers. The lock held fast. He looked ahead, trying to guess what the ghost’s intentions might be: Taking him as far as the dock? Driving onto the ferry itself with no regard for anyone’s safety? God, what if the car hit someone?

Nick tugged the handle of the glove box. The car was old, and the latch stuck. He punched it, knuckles stinging, and tried again. The small door fell open, the glint of the thin gold chain visible.

He didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t. The car was headed straight for the dock, where Annabel Maine and her young son, Lachlan, were laughing together, Lachlan’s little face turned up in the sunshine. Nick picked up the old metal flashlight tucked between the car’s front seats and smashed the side window. Tiny chunks of safety glass rained down on him, but he didn’t waste time worrying about potential cuts. A welcome breeze cool on his sweat-damp face, he snatched at the chain, finding it hot enough to sear his skin. With a violent sweep of his hand, he threw the chain out the window. Futile, maybe, but the ghost was expending so much energy her sphere of influence had to be limited. Despairing, hoping, he wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left and exhaled a pent-up groan of relief when the car responded.

The car juddered, hit a rock on the side of the road, and came to a stop.

Nick turned off the engine and opened the door with shaking hands, the lock rising as smoothly as it was supposed to, no resistance at all. He stumbled over to the side of the road, sank to his knees, and fought a wave of nausea.

Light-headed, unsteady, adrenaline flooding his system to the point where walking would’ve posed a serious challenge, he waited for his heart rate to slow. He heard footsteps, an anxious voice asking questions, but he couldn’t deal with them. Squeezing his eyes shut, he focused on sending out one furious message.

“ _What the hell do you want?_ ”

No answer.

He opened his eyes when his shoulder was touched, and forced himself to smile up at Annabel. “Sorry. Something went wrong with the brakes, and I had to run the car off the road to stop.”

“It’s a blessing you’re not hurt.” She was as pale as he imagined he was, tears glimmering in her eyes. Pressing her hand to her heart and drawing in a quick breath, she said, “I thought— For a moment, I thought—”

“Yeah. Me too.” He glanced over his shoulder. “The ferry’s leaving soon, by the look of it. Better hurry if you wanted to catch it.”

He’d startled her, but that was good if it distracted her thoughts from the near tragedy too. “What? Well, yes, but only if you’re sure you’re fine. You didn’t bang your head or anything?”

“No, I’m fine. I promise. A little shaken up, that’s all.” He saw that wasn’t reassuring her and got to his feet, his legs trembling. “See? Go on, now. Lachlan’s waiting for you.” The boy had followed his mother and was halfway between them and the dock, where he’d hesitated, attention on a seagull pecking at a discarded scrap of food.

Nick wanted them gone as much for his sake as theirs. He had to find the necklace, and it wouldn’t be an easy job.

He held off his search as long as it took for them to get on the ferry, using the wait to calm down and regroup, mind racing as he analyzed what had happened, seeking a reason and coming up dry. The ferry had barely pulled away from the dock when he turned to walk back the way he’d come, searching the side of the road where he’d thrown the chain. The ground was covered with wiry grass and heather, some of it so tall the necklace could have slid down into the soil where he’d never be able to see it.

Keenly aware of the time, Nick checked the car was far enough off the road it wouldn’t be a danger to anyone, and headed for home. His footsteps dragged, each one an effort, as if the necklace were a magnet and he was iron, drawn to it. Walking would take a while, but it didn’t matter that the car was almost certainly undamaged or that it would have gotten him back to Rossneath House much more quickly; he was incapable of getting behind the wheel. And no matter how important it was to find that necklace, he couldn’t stay, knowing John might be awake at home, doing his best to hide any worry that Nick was late and growing later by the minute.

Shit. The groceries.

Nick stopped walking, swallowed past the lump in his throat, and turned to go back to the car. That broke the odd sense of being pulled at, making him believe the ghost was happy he was returning. Not that she’d stay that way when he drove off. And he had to drive. Adults did things they’d prefer not to do all the time, and this was one of those, and he was going to do it.

Behind the wheel, he was assaulted by memories. Cars and ghosts didn’t go well together for him. Matthew’s face was all he saw as he stared out the window at the road and the sea beyond it. Matthew, his lover and manager in the years before he met John, flawed in many ways but part of his life.

Until, swerving to avoid a ghost in the middle of the road, realizing too late what it was, Nick had crashed the car and killed him.

That death had brought him to this island and John. He’d been injured physically; his wrist ached when bad weather was on the way or he used it too much, but the scars guilt had left, well, they’d taken John’s love to heal.

And he needed John now. Sucking in a sharp breath, he started the car. He’d drive slowly, but he wouldn’t walk. The ghost wouldn’t win.

Once on his way, his nerves steadied, the familiarity of driving and his surroundings allowing him to relax. What had the ghost wanted? To hurt him? Why?

Puzzling over it, he ran through the sequence of events. Nothing on the way into town. No sense of a companion in the car. Then he’d turned for home and bam!

He sifted through the emotions that had assaulted him. At the time, he’d been too shocked for them to register, but they’d left a residue behind, an oil slick on water.

Panic, a sense of wrongness, betrayal... They rushed over him, weaker than before, fading, but still powerful enough to leave him breathless.

Sweat prickling his skin, he kept the wheel steady.

“Almost home,” he said, out loud but under his breath. “Almost...”

The relief as their house came into sight would have been overwhelming except he was already overwhelmed, might have made his hands shake, but they were already shaking. He pulled into the drive, leaving space so Janet could get her car out again, and steadied himself before gathering up the grocery bags and going inside.

Janet was at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, the book she’d spoken of earlier at her elbow but closed. As he’d expected, the kitchen showed all the signs of a thorough scrubbing, every surface gleaming, the scent of citrus in the air from the spray cleaner she’d used. “He’s still asleep,” she said softly. “Poor thing. He must be exhausted. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re looking none too lively yourself.”

“I’m fine,” Nick said. He did his best to sound normal and appear relaxed. “Thanks for staying; I appreciate it.”

He was grateful when Janet gathered up her things and left after extracting a promise from him that he’d have John call her later in the day. He put the groceries away, acting on autopilot, mind churning but unable to settle on what to do next. It wasn’t until he found himself leaning forward over the edge of the sink, struggling for air, that he realized what he needed. No, who.

John.

Nick went into the living room, making no attempt to be silent, and sank down on the floor in front of the sofa where John lay sleeping. He rested his head on the cushion and inhaled John’s scent, then closed his eyes and reminded himself they were safe and together. Surely, surely that would get them through whatever might come.

A light touch against his hair told him John had woken. Nick let himself believe his need had drawn John from sleep to comfort him, though more likely it was the clatter of the cupboard doors as he’d tidied away the food, or his footsteps approaching the sofa.

“What is it, love?”

He couldn’t answer with words. He shook his head, reached up, and linked his fingers with John’s, his face still buried in the cushion. It was an awkward angle for his arm, but he needed the reassurance of skin on skin.

“Aye, well, you’re home now.”

The quiet certainty that all was well did a lot to settle him, but the part of him attuned to a different world refused to accept the comforting words as fact. It was never over until he’d confronted the ghost.

So far, all he’d done was turn his back and run.

Chapter Four

It took ages for John to wake up properly. The combination of sleeping during the day, the pain medication, and the unusual location for his nap had him drifting in confusion for what felt like an hour, though in reality only a few minutes had passed. He was aware of Nick curled up on the floor beside the sofa, a warm and comforting presence, but it wasn’t until he swam back to something approximating normal awareness that he recognized this was cause for alarm.

“Love?” He knew Janet had been there—he’d overheard them talking through his doze—but Nick was home now, so everything should be fine. Why wasn’t it? “Talk to me.”

Nick untangled his fingers from John’s and sat up. That meant he moved away from John, which hadn’t been John’s intention at all. “It’s fine.”

_That_ word choice got John’s attention. He pushed himself to a sitting position and blinked away sleep. God, he wanted the drugs out of his system. A man his age shouldn’t be napping like a baby. “What’s fine? Because I know from previous experience that’s what you say when things are most assuredly not fine.”

“No, really. It’s fine.” Nick’s eyes were red-rimmed as if he’d been crying recently, and John saw the tremors running through him.

“Now, maybe, but something upset you, and if you don’t tell me, I’ll imagine the worst. Then I’ll be the one in need of a hug.”

Nick hunched his shoulders. “I screwed up. Nearly got people killed. Again.”

He lashed out, thumping the arm of the sofa hard enough to jolt John’s injured hand. John bit back a hiss of pain. No need to make Nick feel worse. “I’ll want to know more than that, but let’s start with the important bit. I can see for myself you’re not hurt, but is anyone else? No? Not even a scratch?”

Nick had shaken his head in reply, but now he met John’s gaze, misery darkening his expression. “It could’ve been awful.” Once he’d admitted that, his words came faster, pouring from him. “The necklace was in the car, and I didn’t think... God, so stupid. It was no trouble on the way. Then I was coming home, and I tried to turn, and the ghost didn’t want to. She took control and sent me hurtling down the hill to the ferry with Annabel and young Lachlan waiting to board. I smashed the window and threw out the necklace, and that’s all that saved them.”

“And you.”

Nick slashed the air, dismissing John’s comment as if that point was too trivial to mention. “Yeah, and me. Hell, I’d have probably survived the crash too. I always do. I walk away, and someone else dies. Kind of a habit of mine.”

“You say that like it’s of no importance.” John was angry at Nick’s dismissal of the danger he’d been in, but did his best not to let it show. “Have you any idea what it would do to me if you were hurt? Have you?”

“I think so.” Nick reached out and touched the fingertips of John’s bandaged hand lightly but wouldn’t look at his face. “Yes. But that’s not the point. What would happen to you if I killed people because I was too stupid to think about the possible consequences of my actions? I remember what it was like when I first came here, and I can imagine how much worse it would be if I wasn’t Nick Kelley, you know, John McIntyre’s partner. Or Nick Kelley, that bloke who talks to ghosts.” He rubbed his mouth. “What if I was Nick Kelley, the man who killed a mother and child with his car? What would that be like?”

“First off, it sounds to me like you wouldn’t have had a thing to do with it. You weren’t in control of the car; that ghost was. So it would have been her that was guilty, not you.”

“The court system isn’t going to take a plea of ‘not guilty by reason of supernatural incident’ seriously, John.” Nick backed away from him and sat on the edge of the nearest chair instead, his mouth pinched. “I should have put that necklace somewhere else, not in the car, then driven off like nothing was wrong. I didn’t _think._ ”

John clicked his tongue reprovingly. “You didn’t let me finish.” Not that he remembered precisely what he’d planned to say next.

“Nothing you can say will change what happened.” Nick sighed and looked down at his knees. “You aren’t safe around me. No one is. Part of it’s because of what I am— which I’m stuck with—and part of it’s because I do such a bad job handling it, but what it comes down to is you aren’t safe, and I don’t know how to deal with that.”

“The same way you have the last, I don’t know how many years?” Any mild impatience John felt was dissipated by Nick’s answering wince. He ran his hand through his hair. It needed washing now, the strands lank, but that job could wait. “Sorry. Listen. I’m here, alive and well. My hand getting knocked was my damn fault, and apart from that, there’s not a bloody thing wrong with me. In fact, if anyone was to ask, I’d tell them having you made me the luckiest man on the island. Now if you’re planning to leave me to keep me safe, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t. I canna afford a divorce lawyer.”

“Leave you?”

The strangled sound Nick made after that question, as if the air had been taken from him, was oddly reassuring. The idea didn’t please him, by the sounds of it. Good. It didn’t appeal to John either.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“I love you.” Nick sounded calmer now, turning to meet John’s gaze. “But you aren’t safe around me.”

“Maybe the ghosts lash out from time to time, but it’s through no fault of your own, and it’s a risk—a wee one too—I’m willing to take.” He crossed to Nick’s chair, ignoring the dizziness from rising after hours on his back, and cupped Nick’s cheek, noting how cool it was. Lingering effects of shock. The man needed a dram to chase the fears away. “You help people, and for the most part, they’re good people who’ve lost their way. This woman might be one of the nasty ones the world’s glad to see die, but I’m not assuming that until we know more.”

“She took control of the car and aimed it at people!”

“Women drivers,” John said with a roll of his eyes, his intention to make Nick smile. “Maybe she wanted to go somewhere, and back here wasn’t it. Was Annabel directly in the car’s path, or did the ghost swerve to hit her?”

Nick thought before answering. “I don’t know. I mean, she and Lachlan were on the dock, and we were headed for them, but that could have been because she had her mind set on getting onto the ferry.”

John sat back on the couch. “Then let’s not borrow trouble.”

“Easy to say when you won’t be the one responsible if someone gets killed.”

It was difficult not to take that personally, but John did his best because he knew what Nick was like when the ghosts came calling. “Not so easy. If I talk you into giving her the benefit of the doubt and it turns out I’m wrong, you think I won’t feel responsible? _Be_ responsible? You know me better than that, Dominic.”

He rarely used Nick’s given name and indeed felt a bit guilty for using it then as a means of making his point, but Nick flushed and nodded. “Shit. You’re right. I’m sorry .”

“Don’t be sorry. Keep some perspective, love. We’ll get through this.”

Nick nodded again. “Okay. Right.” He sighed and shifted forward in his seat. “So the most immediate problem is getting the necklace back before someone else finds it.”

“Wait, what?” John was sure he’d been paying attention, but clearly he’d missed something important.

“I threw it out the car window. Which is broken, so I’ll have to remember to put the car in the barn before it rains. I couldn’t find it. I looked.”

Voicing his concern over leaving the necklace behind wouldn’t make it appear in front of them, so John wisely kept his mouth shut. “Then we’ll look for it together.”

“You need to—”

“If the next word is _rest_ , I don’t. The fresh air will do me good, and after we’ve found it, I’ll walk back with it, and you can wait, then follow me home.”

Nick rose, planted his hands on his hips, and scowled. “We discussed this already. No way are you being alone with it or touching it.”

The man needed to work on being intimidating. John got to his feet, glad of the excuse to leave the house. He was a terrible patient, or so he’d been told. Inactivity drove him wild. “It was in the hospital room for months without doing anything.”

“We don’t know that.”

“I’m no use to her,” John pointed out. “Why waste precious energy on getting my attention? Anyway, first things first. We find the necklace, and we go now before someone who she _can_ talk to picks it up.” He headed for his boots. “You’re not the only one on the island with a gift,” he threw back over his shoulder. “It’s in our blood, so to speak. She might settle for second-best in a pinch.”

“You aren’t so much as touching it,” Nick repeated, but it was clear the suggestion some random islander might get into trouble with the necklace had got his attention. “Let me grab your coat. It’s sunny now, but you never know.”

He also insisted on driving because he thought it would be too much for John to walk, and John decided to save his energy for arguing about more important things. After using a dustpan and brush to clear the seat and floor of glass fragments, they set off. John’s decision lasted as long as it took for him to see how Nick was at the wheel, hands clenched around the aged leather, eyes wide. “I’m perfectly capable of walking.”

“No, I’m okay.” Nick was a terrible liar but managed to get the car in gear and back it out of the drive without incident, so John kept his mouth shut on the journey. Small talk was pointless by definition, and discussing the ghost didn’t appeal. Suppose it attracted her attention? No, best to stay quiet, which came naturally to John, in any event.

Once they’d parked down near the dock, they soon saw the glitter of glass at the spot where Nick had broken the driver’s-side window. “So it must be a bit farther down,” John said, picturing the trajectory in his head.

“I hit that rock before the car stopped,” Nick said, pointing out one jutting up from the uneven earth. “Probably lucky the frame didn’t snap.”

“It might be in worse shape than it seems.” John was glad of the sunshine and fresh air as he walked a slow path, scanning the ground. “Ought to have Jamie over at Bennett’s Garage take a look at it before we drive it around much more, to be on the safe side.”

“The safe side.” Nick echoed the words as if they were in a foreign language and he’d no idea what they meant.

“Aye, because damage to metal is dangerous no matter who or what caused it.” John picked up a stone. “Here. Go to where you were and throw it.”

“It won’t be the same. Different weight and angle.”

“Do as I say, will you? Humor me.”

Nick took the stone with an air of doing exactly that and strode away. A wry smile on his face, John watched him go.

The stone flew through the air and landed in the springy heather blanketing the ground, vanishing from view.

“Now we’ve lost a stone and a necklace. We’re on a roll.”

“My teacher always told me sarcasm was the lowest form of wit.” John had marked the stone’s path with eyes still sharp enough to identify a bird on the wing and the stir of a fish in the sea. He made a mental adjustment, because Nick was right and a thin chain would take the air differently, then walked to where he knew the chain would lie.

It wasn’t there. So much for science. He’d go back to relying on luck.

“I’d suggest I re-create the whole experience from scratch, but I think we both know there’s no way that’s gonna happen.” Nick went back to the car and leaned on the bonnet. “What was I thinking, throwing it out the window like that?”

“You were thinking you wanted to save lives,” John said bluntly. He walked over and leaned beside Nick, slung his good arm around Nick’s shoulders, and tugged him closer to press a kiss to his head. “And it sounds to me like you only had a moment or two to act. You should be singing your own praises, not beating yourself up for how things turned out.”

“There isn’t anyone else to blame.”

“The ghost who started all this, for one. Or maybe whoever was responsible for her death, assuming it wasn’t natural or an accident. We’ll find out.” They always had in the past, and some of those experiences had been more frightening than this one.

“Not without the necklace. It’s our only link to her.” Nick glanced around, his frustration evident in his tense face. “Where the fuck is it?”

“We’ll keep looking.” Heather was a devil to search, though, thick and tangled, with rough stalks. The fine links of the necklace would be all but invisible if it’d fallen through a small gap to rest on the ground. “Alec over at the pub has a metal detector. That might help.”

“Would he lend it to us and not ask questions?”

John snorted. “That he would not. Lend it, aye, but you know the man as well as I do, and he’s never happy until he’s squeezed the last drop out of the conversation. Still, it couldn’t hurt to try, and we’ll drop the car off at the garage on the way.”

“I suppose so.” Nick seemed reluctant to leave, and John couldn’t blame him. The necklace wasn’t inherently dangerous or particularly valuable, but the thought of losing it and living with the knowledge they’d failed would weigh heavily on Nick.

“Or I stay here and keep looking while you take care of the car and talking to Alec?” John suggested.

He saw the possibilities at war on Nick’s face. “No, it’s fine. If we couldn’t find it, what are the chances someone else might?”

“Slim,” John agreed. “You’ll feel better if we’re not gone long, I suspect, so we’ll be quick. Come on.”

It didn’t take long to drop off the car at the garage, and no surprise to hear it would be days before they’d get it back in one piece. The replacement window would have to be ordered—the car had belonged to Nick’s uncle, and although it wasn’t the oldest vehicle on the island by far, its age made some repairs more complicated—but Jamie promised he’d take a look at the car’s frame and ensure it was safe to drive. “These old ones are more solid than anything being made today, so chances are it’s fine if you drove here with no problems. You can tape plastic over the window and still use it once I’ve checked it over.”

Alec at the pub had a dozen questions before he relinquished his metal detector. In the long run he seemed to believe Nick’s story about his watch having fallen off in the tall weeds, and he handed the machine over with a brief explanation of how to use it.

Once back at the search site, Nick turned on the machine and got a high-pitched whine. “How many bottle caps and pennies do you think we’ll find?”

“A few, maybe, but people don’t litter much around here. Don’t dig up any Viking treasure. More trouble than it’s worth.”

“I’ll bury it again; I promise.”

John sat on a rock poking up out of the heather and rested his arm on his knee. The sun warm on his face, he allowed himself the pleasure of watching Nick, admiring the tempting curve of his arse when Nick bent over to search by hand, and the way the light caught his dark hair.

A fine man, and that made John a lucky one. It wasn’t rare for him to have time to think. On the island there was always plenty of time to go around, especially in the long summer days. His relationship wasn’t something he gave much thought to, though. It was a constant in his life, a blessing, and a source of happiness. He’d no sooner prod at it to see how it worked than he’d pop a bubble to see what was inside.

He’d known about Nick’s ability to sense ghosts almost as long as he’d known Nick. For the man to think his gift was reason for John to back away made no sense at all. He pursed his lips, staring at Nick through narrowed eyes. That notion needed uprooting like a dandelion in the vegetable patch, every scrap of it removed to prevent it regrowing.

A screech from the detector had him calling out to Nick, but his surge of hope ebbed away when Nick shook his head.

“Found a nail.” He slid it into his pocket, and John, who did the laundry, made a note to check pockets thoroughly before starting the washing machine.

Though that was a chore Nick would have to take over for the next little while.

Eventually John had to call an end to the search. The sun was low on the horizon, and there was no point in continuing when they wouldn’t be able to see, nor was he keen on the idea of stumbling home in the dark without a torch.

“One more minute,” Nick said for the third time, and John, frustrated, pulled out the big guns.

“I’m overdue for my pills.”

Nick looked at him, stricken, but John couldn’t keep his lips from twitching at how well it had worked. Nick shook his head when he realized what was going on. “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that?”

“You’re the only one who’s ever accused me of that,” John said. “The question is, did it work?”

“Yeah, of course it worked. You knew it would.” Nick came over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Years ago, John would’ve flinched away from a kiss in public, even with no one around. Times had changed. He’d changed. “How long do you think we’ll have to hang around before we can hitch a ride with someone?”

The answer was “longer than they cared to wait.” It was three miles from the intersection at the top of the hill to Rossneath, but they were both used to walking, and if John’s hand ached, his legs were strong. They reached home damp and shivering in a misty rain that would soon turn into a steady downpour, the sunshine of earlier as if it’d never been. Nick set the metal detector down with a _thump_ beside the windowsill.

“Take your pills before you—” he started and then stopped dead.

John bumped into him and cursed when his hand twinged. Nick didn’t apologize or explain, so John stepped to one side to see what Nick was looking at.

The gold chain was laid out in a perfect circle on the kitchen table, waiting for them.

The sound from Nick was complex enough to make the Gordian knot look like a loop and a twist. John detected relief, incredulity, fury, and God alone knew how many other emotions tangled around the yelp.

“There! It’s there! All this fucking time—splinters from that goddamned heather, my back’s killing me, and I thought...I thought—”

Breaking in on Nick’s spluttered words, John chuckled. “She’s having fun with us, right enough.”

He walked past the table to the kettle, ignoring the necklace. It wasn’t his to touch. Over the rush of water from the tap as he filled the kettle, he heard Nick growl a final curse, then settle into a silence that boded ill for the ghost.

Nick was a sweet-tempered man, but push him too far and John had seen the sweetness turn not sour but frozen. With an inward shake of his head at the ridiculousness of it all, he defended the ghost.

“It’s not as if she could’ve texted us to tell us to stop wasting our time. And moving it must’ve drained her dry. I doubt you’ll hear from her tonight, so stop chuntering and get the mugs.”

For a moment he wondered if Nick had reached a breaking point, but then there was a heavy sigh and a movement in the direction of the shelf where they kept the big, solid mugs they favored for their tea. They’d been made by a woman with a pottery studio on Mull, and they’d survived plenty of rough treatment and come out unscathed. Nick bought two more every time they happened to be in the village shop that carried her work, and they’d amassed quite a collection.

“If she wanted us to have it, I don’t know why she couldn’t have floated it up out of the heather and given it to us,” Nick said.

“If she found the strength to move it at all after her exertions today, we should be grateful she didn’t give it to whoever was nearest at the time,” John pointed out. “I don’t know that she wants you to have it, but she’s certainly trying to communicate something important.”

“Important to her. More important than people’s lives.”

John nodded and sat when Nick brought him his pill bottle and a glass of water. “Do you think she knows she’s dead?”

“Maybe not. And if she doesn’t, she must be confused. They usually are.”

Pity softened any irritation John felt after the stressful day. It stayed with him while he brewed the tea and poured it out, strong for both of them, the milk turning the liquid a deep toffee color.

He’d been lost on the moors once as a child, a mist rolling down from the mountains and cutting him off from the path he’d planned to take. Turned around, the damp chill sapping his strength, a place as familiar as his bedroom had become a frightening maze. He’d stumbled around for hours, hungry, scared, each breath closer to a sob than he’d care to admit, before the mist had thinned as suddenly as it’d fallen, sunshine sparkling on the wet grass of the shore, and he found himself miles from where he’d set out.

Being dead and trapped between this world and whatever waited beyond it had to be incalculably worse than that childhood memory.

“We should call the hospital,” he said. “Maybe tell them the truth, or part of it. That we found the necklace and took it by mistake, and we’d like to return it to the patient or her family.”

“We can’t do that until after I’ve helped her.”

“I didn’t say we had to return it straightaway.” John gestured at Nick. “You’ve got the cute accent working for you. It’s worth a try.”

“Right, okay.” It wouldn’t be the first time they’d used Nick’s American accent to their advantage. Nick went to get the phone and came back with it pressed to his face. “Great hold music,” he reported, rolling his eyes as he sat and wrapped his other hand around his mug. He’d lifted it to take a sip when he paused and set it back down. “Yes, hi, I was hoping you could help me? My husband was there the other night, and I found something that didn’t belong to him in the room, and somehow in the confusion of getting him released, I forgot— Oh, okay. Thanks.”

“Wrong department?” John asked, familiar with the ways of hospitals.

“Wrong department. Hi, I hope you’re the right person for this. My husband was admitted there the other night, and when he was released, we accidentally brought home a necklace that a former patient must have left in the room he was staying in. We’d like to be able to get it back to whoever owns it. Is there a way to figure out who that person might be?” Pause. “Yes, a delicate gold chain. Seems like it must belong to a woman. Could you help me find her? Is there a list or something? Okay.”

John drank some tea. “Let me guess: still not the right person?”

“No, but we might be getting closer.” Nick smiled at him, and it did as much to warm him as the hot tea.

It took five minutes and three repetitions of the request to get an answer. John had reached the end of his drink and was drifting a little, adjusting to the awkwardness of the bulky dressing and ignoring the persistent itchiness of skin he wouldn’t see again until the bandages came off. Trying to ignore it, at least.

“I understand you can’t give out personal information, but— Yes, we could return it to you, but—” Nick drew in a breath. “Please. It’s important I know one thing, at least. Did anyone die in that room in the last year? A woman? You can tell me that, can’t you?”

Apparently not. From the sound of it, the person on the other end was suspicious, stubborn, and determined to hang on to any useful information as if it were a winning lottery ticket, not a name.

Nick ended the call with a vague promise to send the necklace back and gave John a look of pure frustration. “If they knew they couldn’t tell me, why didn’t they say that at the start instead of passing me around from one person to another?”

With a shrug, John said, “No one wants to take responsibility if giving you a name would get them in trouble, but they’re too polite to disappoint you. You got shuffled around until you met someone more interested in the rules than keeping you happy.”

“So we’re back where we started.”

They sat in silence for a while. John felt the tickle of a thought he couldn’t pin down. Something Nick had said... He snapped his fingers. “The phone call she made. You said she wanted someone. A name. Who was it?”

“Huh?” Nick scrunched up his face. “Um, Gary? No, Gareth; that was it.”

That sounded right. John nodded, optimistic again. “So we look for him, not her. And with luck he’s someone I can talk to. Someone with a pulse.”

“There could be a hundred Gareths, and we don’t know his last name,” Nick said. “No, no, don’t get that look on your face. I’m not saying we won’t try; I’m saying it’s a needle-in-a-haystack search. In fact—” He looked around, then addressed thin air. “If you’re still here, what would come in handy would be a last name. Um, surname. Yours or his. Or your _first_ name. Or an address. Any of that stuff would be a lot more helpful than whatever it is you’ve been trying to do so far. Just so you know.”

They waited, silent, near holding their breath in case there was some kind of response, but the only sounds were the hum of the refrigerator and other mundane house noises.

Nick sighed. “Worth a try.”

He went to the computer—John followed but, instead of standing behind him, tugged one of the padded chairs over and sat on it—and searched for anyone named Gareth in the area. “Might as well try all of Scotland,” he muttered, making some changes to what he’d already typed. “No way of knowing how far they might have traveled, or why.”

John thought once you’d gone there, including Gareths from England as well didn’t seem unreasonable, but kept his mouth shut for the moment. He could suggest it if they didn’t come up with anything helpful, looking in Scotland.

“Try his name plus ‘death,’” he suggested when page after page of results had yielded nothing useful. “And limit the search to the last year.”

That reduced the entries to six, and that was plenty. “There,” Nick said, a fraction of a second before John’s “Got him!”

“Has to be him,” John agreed.

Nick brought up the newspaper article. John had never heard of the paper; it was a mainland one, but they’d reported the story with an eye to the pathos and drama.

He read the few paragraphs, glancing at the photo of a smiling couple on their thirtieth wedding anniversary, according to the caption. Two average people, made special by happiness then and later by tragedy.

Gareth Southland of Mull, died in April, age seventy-three, struck by a car on his way to the hospital to pick up his wife, Nancy, who’d been recovering from a mild

heart attack. The news of his death had been broken to Nancy, who’d refused to accept it, insisting on seeing the badly mangled body to prove she was right.

She’d suffered a second, ultimately fatal heart attack after returning to her room in a state of shock and died that day.

“Her final words to the doctor were that Gareth was coming to get her. Take her home.” Nick pulled in a harsh breath, his lips trembling. “Jesus, that’s what she wants. To go home and be with him.”

“And now she can.” John rested his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “I’ll help if I’m needed. Tell me what to do.”

“I would if I knew,” Nick said and dropped his head down onto the desk.

Chapter Five

In the end, because it seemed obvious Nancy was determined to go home, they decided they’d take her there. The garage had called to say the car was safe to drive, beyond the broken window, so they could use it until the glass arrived from the mainland.

“Tomorrow,” Nick said out loud, wanting to make sure Nancy understood there were limitations to what they were planning.

“And if you cause any trouble tonight, we’re likely to consider canceling the whole thing.” John glanced at Nick for approval.

“So behave yourself. You’ve been waiting for months; you can wait one more night.” He looked at John again, wanting to finalize the details. “You’re sure you’re up for coming? It might be a long day.”

“A long day with you? There’s nothing I like better.”

It was hard sometimes to know if John was being serious under his levity, and Nick needed to be sure. “I can manage on my own. I’ll be fine. It might make more sense for you to stay here, take it easy, maybe go out for a pub lunch with Michael?”

“And spend the whole time fretting about what trouble you might be running into? No, thank you.”

Nick didn’t argue. Truth be told, though he would worry about John’s safety, John at his back grounded him and reminded him of why he had every reason to love being alive. When he was dealing with ghosts, that kind of affirmation helped. The lines became blurred at times, with curiosity making him wonder what was to come, straining to catch a glimpse.

John made him hope it didn’t come for a long time.

“I’ll be glad to have your company,” Nick said. “It’s tricky driving on narrow roads.”

“We don’t have any other kind here.” John sounded satisfied with that state of affairs. “Maybe we could pick up a lobster or two for supper tomorrow. Loch Scridain has some of the biggest you’ll find, proper monsters, and it’s close by where we’ll be going.”

Nancy and Gareth had lived on Mull, not far from the village of Bunessan. It would be a ninety-minute drive from the ferry landing in Tobermory, through the spectacular scenery Nick had never gotten tired of and never would. The white sand and the wild sea, its color shifting from sullen gray to a rich green as the clouds raced across the sky, lifted his spirits on the darkest day.

“We’d better have something now, or we’ll be too tired to eat,” Nick said, dragging himself from his reverie of a pleasant afternoon’s drive. “But yeah, lobster sounds great.” They’d need a solid meal after a day of ghost wrangling. “Like cowboys,” he said without explaining where the thought had come from, and John, who at times understood him better than he understood himself, patted his shoulder and went off into the kitchen to check out the supplies Nick had brought back earlier.

“We’ve still got these eggs from wee Hannah’s chickens,” John noted, head in the refrigerator. “We could have an omelet.”

“We could,” Nick agreed. “And I’ll make it, if you get out of my way and sit down. Go on, now. What do you think? Ham and cheese? With some toast?”

“Breakfast for dinner, aye. In your way, am I?” John sounded more amused than anything else and went to sit obediently.

Nick smiled at him. “You know that’s not the way I meant it.” He’d have asked John to grate the cheese if the man had two working hands, but making an omelet was simple.

“I know.”

John fell into one of his introspective moods, gazing at the wall, a frown puckering his forehead. The moods never struck Nick as a withdrawal from him, more John taking stock of the situation or turning an idea over in his head. Nick waited him out, occupying himself by cooking the fluffiest omelet possible. It fell apart in the transfer from pan to plate, leaving it looking more like scrambled eggs, but he took consolation in the sure and certain knowledge John wouldn’t care. John valued taste over presentation.

After taking a bite and giving an appreciative hum at the taste, John broke his silence. “When we take her home, what then?”

Good question. Nick wished he had an answer, not a guess or a hope. “Could be Gareth’s there too, waiting for her.”

“Two ghosts to deal with? That’s you outnumbered, because I don’t count for anything but moral support.”

“With any luck they’ll be more focused on each other than worried about me.” Nick wasn’t hungry, though the food tasted good, but he made himself eat anyway because he knew he’d need the energy. Considering it didn’t usually require much in the way of physical exertion, dealing with ghosts seemed to burn a lot of calories.

John nodded and swallowed a mouthful of the toast Nick had slathered in butter. “We can hope. I’m wondering if you feel a bit out of practice.”

“A bit? More like a lot. Being here on Traighshee, it’s been the most peaceful time of my life.”

“And here I thought you were looking well rested and happy because of my loving influence,” John said, grinning.

“Oh, trust me, that has a lot to do with it.” If they hadn’t been eating, Nick would have reached across and squeezed John’s hand, but at the moment he didn’t have one to spare. “Almost everything.” A thought occurred to him. “You didn’t seriously think I was going to leave you?”

John pushed his plate away with food still on it, something he normally considered marginally more sinful than watering his whiskey. “I could see you trying, convinced it was for my own good, but I dinna see you getting far, laddie. I’d follow you, see? If you’d tired of me or found someone else, well, that’d be a different matter, but if you were being noble, I’d not let you sacrifice my happiness that way. And that’s what you’d be doing. Living without you would be existing, no more than that. I spent too many years lonely to ever want to go back to it.”

It was a long speech for John, and Nick swallowed past a tight throat before he replied. “I won’t do that. I promise.”

“I want more than words.”

With John’s gaze pinning him in place, the soft words a command, Nick forgot about ghosts, broken bones, and the possibility of someone knocking at the door. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then shoved his chair away, which gave him space to fall to his knees in front of John. Years together had taught them a shorthand when it came to communicating, and any shyness between them was so far in the past it was forgotten. They knew each other, flesh and soul.

“Guess I should show you, then.”

“I wasn’t meaning—” John’s mouth twitched in a smile when Nick raised his eyebrows. “Well, maybe I was.”

“And maybe you weren’t. That’s not the point, is it? I look at you, and I can’t imagine not wanting you. Not wanting this.” He undid the front of the jeans John was wearing and leaned in to kiss the sensitive skin above the waistband, loving the familiar scent of John and their laundry detergent. Loving the way John’s belly tensed at the contact, the faintest bit ticklish.

“You’re mad sometimes,” John said fondly. He caressed Nick’s hair, tucked it back behind his ear. “But I love you all the same.”

“Because of? Or in spite of?” They were joking now, lighthearted the way they often were in bed, easy with each other. “Help me here, would you?”

John lifted his hips so Nick’s tugging at his pants was more fruitful, then gasped when Nick didn’t hesitate to lean in and lick him. “Because of! Christ, give a man some warning.”

“The warning was when I took off your pants,” Nick pointed out. He took John’s half-hard cock into his mouth and sucked at it gently. It swelled in response, transforming into a stiff column of flesh within a few moments, betraying John’s need.

“Right, of course. God, that feels good. Wouldn’t need those pain pills at all if you could do this twenty-four hours a day.” When Nick glanced up, John’s eyes were closed, his lips parted.

Achingly beautiful, in Nick’s opinion, at least, and that was what counted. The world might see a middle-aged man, skin weathered by exposure to the elements, his features pleasant but unremarkable. Nick saw integrity, passion, and unwavering strength.

Nick saw John. His husband, his lover, his first and best friend.

John opened his eyes. “Did you change your mind? Developed an allergy to blowjobs I don’t know about?”

“What? No. What? I was...” He gave up on an explanation that would’ve left John abashed, reduced to muttering _imph_ and glancing around the room in search of an escape. Much better to demonstrate how John—sprawled out half-naked, cock rigid— appealed to him on every level.

Allergic, his ass.

If they hadn’t already started, he would’ve suggested going upstairs to the bedroom, where John would have been more comfortable and Nick’s knees wouldn’t have been subjected to the hard floor. With John’s pleasured gasp already in his ears, though, he didn’t want to pause long enough to move. It was a little in-joke they had, that they couldn’t always wait for the better option when it came to comfort. After all these years, there were still nights they were too hungry for each other to hold off.

He leaned in, shifting his weight to brace one hand on the chair beside John’s thigh, and slid his mouth down to the base of John’s erection. The heft of it on his tongue made his mouth and eyes water, but neither of those was something he’d complain about. In truth, he enjoyed them. Not as much as he enjoyed the sounds John made when he was giving him a blowjob, of course, because knowing he was driving John toward orgasm was powerful.

“You’re so good,” John murmured, touching his hair again. “So good to me.”

Nick wanted to say he was only able to be so good to John because John was so good, such a good man, but he had to settle for using his lips and tongue in an attempt to communicate those things.

From the way John stopped talking, he succeeded. John kept stroking Nick’s hair and shoulder, using one hand where it would’ve usually been two, but Nick pushed his worry about crushed fingers aside.

This was a two-way street, always. He wasn’t giving and getting nothing in return. He loved the intimacy of the act, and his cock, swollen and hard, proved it. Maybe he couldn’t come from sucking John off, but he’d been on the verge of a climax more than a few times in the past, with the salt-sour thickness of spunk coating his tongue and John’s fingers tight on him.

Sitting, John couldn’t thrust deep. If Nick wanted to feel the head of John’s cock nudge the back of his throat and experience a dizzyingly intense moment of being filled, taken, he had to do it to himself. He took John deep, quelling an involuntary spasm as his body protested, then reluctantly eased off. John loved attention paid to the crown anyway, the tip of Nick’s tongue lapping at the small knot of nerves or the exposed head, foreskin folded down neatly.

He steadied the base of John’s cock with his free hand and did all the things he knew John loved best, smiling inwardly when he heard John groan. He didn’t need to ask if John was getting close to orgasm; there were half a dozen tiny clues, from the way John’s balls drew up tight to the way his breath caught in his throat. Twice he slowed and let John’s arousal fade, but it was too tempting to return to the more fervent sucking that soon had John crying out and spasming with release.

When John was still gasping, Nick fumbled with the front of his jeans, awkward and eager to either reduce or increase the pressure on his erection, he didn’t much care which. As soon as he touched his bare skin, he knew and divided his concentration between cleaning John’s softening cock with his mouth and stroking his with a rough hand. When he felt himself shuddering on the edge, he lifted his head and looked at John’s face, relaxed and sated, and his climax rushed over him, so he had to brace himself on the chair again as he came.

John settled a warm palm on the back of his neck and murmured something— Nick didn’t know what; the words didn’t matter—as they recovered, breathing returning to normal. “Might want to think about getting up off the floor,” John said eventually. “You aren’t doing your knees any favors.”

“Probably not.” Nick didn’t want to admit they ached. He shifted back and got up, stifling the mild complaining sounds that tried to escape him, and fastened his pants.

“Next time I’ll make you grab a cushion, or we’ll show some restraint and get ourselves to the bedroom like decent folk.” John shook his head, frowning reprovingly, and rose to his feet, then let Nick zip up his jeans without comment. “In the kitchen and the sky still light, meaning there’s work to be done? Shameless behavior, so it is.”

“And if I thought you meant that, I’d be worried.” Nick turned his head when John slipped an arm around him, and leaned into the kiss that always seemed the perfect coda to their lovemaking, still containing heat but lacking the frenzied urgency of earlier. A sunset kiss.

“I’ll be all right, you know,” John murmured against Nick’s lips. “I’m tough as old boots. Ask anyone around these parts.”

“I don’t need to. None of them know you as well as I do, and you’re...” Nick cupped John’s face, using one hand deliberately, because one working hand was all John had. “Enduring. Like the rocks on the shore.”

“They get turned to sand.”

“Yeah,” Nick said softly, picturing the hundreds of ghosts he’d encountered. “I know.”

John kissed him again, this time regretfully. “And now I’ve made you maudlin. I’m sorry, love.”

“Don’t be. It’s not new, and it’s definitely not your fault.” Nick slid his hand to the side of John’s neck and rested his thumb over the pulse point and the steady, reassuring thud of John’s heartbeat. “Do you want me to put your plate in the oven for a few minutes, heat it up?”

“No, I’m full. I’d rather go upstairs to bed.” It was too early to sleep, but they had books to read, and Nick suspected John’s eyes would be heavy-lidded sooner than he’d like. The man was sleeping his way back to health, like a garden lying dormant in the winter.

“Go on. I’ll clean up a few things and put the frying pan to soak. Then I’ll join you.” He patted John’s hip, then turned to the sink when John headed upstairs.

It didn’t take long to straighten away the dirty dishes and fill the pan with hot, soapy water. If they left any food out, it tended to attract mice, especially at this time of year when it was beginning to get cold at night. Last year they’d borrowed a barn cat and shut it in the house for a week, and it had proudly killed more than a dozen mice in between sessions of staring out the window. In the long run it had been well worth the effort of wrestling it into a cardboard box and ignoring its yowls—twice—during the car ride back and forth, but that didn’t mean Nick wanted to repeat the experience.

He lingered downstairs, tidying in a desultory way, picking up a magazine, wandering around with it for a few moments, then replacing it where he’d found it, straightening a throw across the back of the couch, then pulling it off and putting it on top of the washing machine.

Why was he reluctant to go upstairs, turn out the light, and get into bed with John? He wasn’t scared of the dark. He knew better than anyone that ghosts didn’t wear watches. They did what they were compelled to do at any time of the day or night. He didn’t sense malevolence from Nancy, despite her actions earlier in the car. After learning her story, her lack of aggression wasn’t surprising. She was confused and grieving, not angry.

Yet some part of him wanted to sleep away from John, as if that would draw any danger to him and leave John safe.

“Are you coming up, then?” John called.

Shaking off fears he knew were irrational, Nick headed for the stairs. Maybe his reluctance was performance anxiety. When was the last time he’d dealt with a ghost? Two years ago? Three? In a bed-and-breakfast outside Seattle, and dealing with that wisp of a ghost, barely present, as light and easy to brush off as a cobweb, hadn’t stretched him.

Tomorrow would be different. Nancy was clinging to a delusion and a hope. Take those away from her, and how would she react? What kind of woman had she been in life?

He’d find out tomorrow.

He was aware of the gold chain shifting inside the thin fabric of his jeans pocket as he made his way slowly up the staircase. He took his time because he was deciding where to leave it overnight. In the end, he slipped it from his pocket and hooked it around the post at the top of the banister. At least it wouldn’t be in the room with them, and John was unlikely to see it there since he wouldn’t wander farther than the bathroom until morning.

John was comfortably tucked into bed, book propped open and facedown across his thigh. “Thought you might have got lost.”

“I didn’t want to leave anything out that might attract mice.”

“Aye, it’s the time of year for them, isn’t it?” John looked at him shrewdly. “You’re fretting about tomorrow.”

Nick shook his head as he moved to change into his soft flannel sleep pants. “Well. Maybe a little.”

“That’s natural. You’ve done this often, but I don’t imagine you ever take success for granted.” John tapped his bandages. “How many times have I pulled into a dock, and I still did this.”

“God, no. How could I? And yeah, experience helps, but it’s no guarantee of success.”

“So by my way of thinking, if you’re worried, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Nick paused in the process of tugging on his sleep pants, balancing on one foot until he realized how precarious his position was and completed the action. “Is that your version of logical?”

John’s smile was mischievous and made him look years younger. “Are you saying there’s a flaw in it?”

“I’m going to brush my teeth,” Nick told him. “When I get back, I’ll have a list of flaws a mile long, count on it.”

He didn’t share any of them, not that he’d come up with many. By the time he’d finished in the bathroom, John was fast asleep, soft snores escaping him every few breaths, the book on his lap in danger of sliding to the floor.

Nick rescued the book, a biography of a sailor who’d gone around the world solo, and nudged a pillow under John’s arm, supporting it. This was his chance to sleep in the spare room and quiet his unease, but in the end he crawled in beside John. It was where he belonged, after all. He had doubts about many things, but never that.

It was his house—his family’s house, when it came down to it—and John had been the one to leave the comfort of his home to move in with Nick. John had been the one who came out to his family and the community by acknowledging he was with Nick. It had been something he’d kept a secret his whole life until shortly after Nick had come to Traighshee, but they’d been drawn to each other by a force neither of them could have explained or ignored.

John was the kind of man who would have tried. Nick was the kind who knew he wouldn’t have done a good job and not bothered. They fit together, similar in some ways and complete opposites in others.

Nick wished he could have wrapped himself around John, curled himself around his beautiful Scottish husband’s warmth and slept, comforted by John’s nearness and confidence that in the long run everything would be okay. Instead, he lay there for what felt like hours, staring up at the dark ceiling and wondering if the tiny sounds of an old house settling might be mice in the kitchen, carefully gnawing their way through cardboard boxes and eating the biscuits.

Maybe, he thought, if the mice ate the chocolate biscuits, they’d be poisoned by whatever it was that was bad for dogs and die. That would be much better than when the borrowed cat had killed a mouse it wasn’t hungry enough to eat and left it in the middle of the floor. The cursing when John had stepped on it had been epic.

Then he pictured the house haunted by scores of tiny ghost mice, turning beady, reproachful eyes on him, whiskers twitching, and wasn’t sure whether to grin or shudder. Not that he’d ever met an animal ghost. Maybe they didn’t view death as avoidable the way some humans did, against all sense and reason, sticking around after their bodies were dust and ashes. Nick knew better than most a reprieve only lasted for so long, and life as a ghost wasn’t a proper life.

If John died first and tried to stick around, waiting for Nick, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.

“Stop thinking,” he said aloud, though quietly, so John did no more than grumble in his sleep.

Wakeful nights happened. He dealt with them by catnapping the next day or taking on a hard physical job to leave himself too exhausted to have two white nights, as his grandmother had called them, in a row. It didn’t mean he enjoyed them. Lying restless, a single thought, usually depressing, on a loop in his head, drained his energy.

Going into an encounter with a ghost following a bad night was the worst possible timing.

All he wanted was some sleep. Why was that too much to ask? It was so frustrating he considered getting up and finding something to do. Anything. But he knew if he did, chances were John would wake up and come looking for him, and John had been through enough in the past few days. He deserved to get some rest so he could heal.

Nick turned toward John and settled into a more comfortable position, then closed his eyes. He listened to the sound of John’s breathing, quiet and even, and did his best to imitate it. Surely breathing like a sleeping person would increase his chances of falling asleep himself, and if it didn’t, at least he’d be relaxed.

The next thing he knew, it was morning, sun streaming in through the window they’d forgotten to pull the shade across. John’s bare foot was warm against his under the blankets.

“Morning.” John’s voice was rough with sleep. “Been awake for a while and trying to convince myself to get up, but I haven’t managed it yet.”

“Guess we have to, and better sooner than later.” Nick yawned. “You stay here until I’ve made you some tea.”

“No. I’m properly awake at this point. Might as well get up.” Despite his words, John shifted closer and draped an arm over Nick.

“I love the way you say one thing and do another.”

“A man of mystery, that’s me.” John raised his injured hand. “It feels a wee bit better today.”

“Already? How is that possible?”

“Three more weeks with the splints on, but it’s healing; I can tell.”

A positive attitude couldn’t hurt. “Plenty of calcium’s what you need. I’ll make you a milk shake.”

“Will you, now?” John made Nick’s offer sound like a deliciously indecent suggestion, then spoiled the seductive effect with a chuckle and a slap aimed at Nick’s ass. “I’ll settle for a bowl of ice cream.”

Lured by the prospect of homemade desserts, Nick had bought an ice-cream maker online and spent the summer experimenting. The freezer was full of plastic containers, some barely touched, others close to empty, with flavors ranging from raspberry mint to ginger and whiskey. John had protested the use of whiskey in the latter but agreed grudgingly the ice cream was one of his favorites.

“Not for breakfast,” Nick said firmly. Though it did go well with pancakes...

Chapter Six

“How are you, then?” John asked, glancing over at Nick and trying to evaluate how he felt.

“I’m okay. It’s weird. When we were coming over to go to the hospital, I didn’t notice feeling sick.” Nick was behind the wheel while they waited for their turn to drive off the ferry and on to Mull.

John nodded. “Maybe you were, but you were too distracted to pay it any mind.”

“Maybe. It does make me wonder if it’s all in my head.” Nick had probably spent too much time wondering such things during his life, and John wasn’t keen on letting him add this one to the list.

“Of course it’s not. If it was, that bracelet thing we tried would have worked. What do they call that? The placebo effect?”

“Or it didn’t work because I didn’t believe it would.” Nick shrugged and smiled. “It’s fine. I’ve learned to live with it. Small price to pay in exchange for the life I have.”

“And it stops you fishing, apart from off the shore.” John had never quite shaken the belief Nick would enjoy fishing if he gave himself a chance to get used to it.

“Tragic.”

“Out on the water on a soft day, with the fish fair leaping into the boat and the sea like a millpond, you’d be too busy reeling them in to notice your stomach.”

“In my experience there’s no such thing as a day when the sea’s like a millpond, even guessing what a millpond is from context. Sharing a small boat with slimy, wriggling mackerel who don’t know when to die, and peeing over the side with who knows who watching, is my version of hell.”

“Tchah.” John loved the man, but there were moments when Nick spoke pure nonsense. “I’ll not be forcing you out on the water; don’t worry.”

“Trust me, I’m not. Brace yourself for the bump.”

Even with Nick taking it slowly, leaving the ferry ramp jolted the car, and John was glad of the warning. It was going to take a while to get used to protecting his hand.

They were one of a long line of cars and trucks, but once out of Tobermory, the traffic thinned, and they made reasonably good time.

John knew Mull too well to give the scenery more than a glance. He was more concerned by Nick, who twitched every time the car hit a pothole, as if the resultant lurch was a precursor to the ghost taking over the steering again.

“She won’t do anything when we’re taking her home, and if she does, we can stop her.” John stared through his partially open window. The necklace, inside a zipped plastic bag, was duct-taped to the outside of the window, secure but easy to detach in an emergency. He half fancied he saw a woman’s face reflected in the wing mirror, but he decided not to mention it.

“I’m imagining their house is occupied by some nice family that’s going to refuse to let us through the front door.” Realizing Nick was distracted by a whole collection of worries John hadn’t considered didn’t make him feel much better about Nick being behind the wheel. He wouldn’t mention that either, though. “Or worse... What if it’s actual family, like one of their kids or something? With grandchildren?”

“People don’t always want to admit there’s a world they could know nothing about.” John refused to let himself glance in the wing mirror again.

“It’s understandable,” Nick said. Sometimes he sounded like a therapist. “People are taught from the time they’re kids that ghosts aren’t real. It’s kind of hard to convince them the opposite’s true. Plus it’s not like most of them would want to believe it.”

They’d encountered plenty of people over the years who were grateful for an opportunity for a last chance to speak to someone they loved and had lost. John was

one of them. His final conversation with his father’s ghost was a memory he returned to rarely, afraid he’d tarnish it with handling.

“Some would.”

Nick slowed to give a flock of gulls in the road time to scatter. “Most of them don’t. Some of them _really_ don’t.”

“We’ll wait and see before we worry.”

“And then it’ll be too late to plan.”

Trying not to sound annoyingly patient, John said, “And if we walk in there with a plan for every eventuality under the sun, it doesn’t mean they’ll work.”

Nick hunched his shoulders, shutting John out. God, he hated that. “Nick, stop the car.”

If anything, Nick sped up, glancing around wildly. “What? Why?”

“I need to stretch my legs.” They were at a point where the road curved so close to the dunes John could’ve thrown a stone and hit sand. Beyond the white dunes, a narrow strip of beach gleamed like mother-of-pearl. The tide was on the turn, the waves retreating, leaving rock pools full to the brim, a litter of seaweed, and the inevitable plastic debris. John always brought home any he saw, keeping a bag in his pocket for the purpose, made of material thin enough to fold up to the size of a golf ball but strong enough to endure multiple washings.

Nick hissed out an exasperated breath. “That’s bullshit. Putting this off won’t make it easier, and it could piss Nancy off.”

“I’ve no wish to make a lady wait, but you’re no good to her in this mood. We’ll walk by the sea and sit awhile. There’s no rush.”

Nick tightened his grip on the wheel, and John resisted the urge to tighten his in sympathy, because it would hurt. Finally, Nick nodded and slowed, pulling over in a spot where the car wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. “There,” he said, shutting off the engine. “Happy now?” He sounded a combination of annoyed and trying to find his sense of humor, and a rush of affection made John’s voice warm when he spoke.

“Happy enough if I haven’t made you angry with me.”

Nick sighed. “I’m not. You’re probably right, but I want to get this over with. I keep thinking one of these times it’ll be the last time. Waiting, you know? But it never is.”

John understood that. “Maybe better off to stop that line of thinking, then? Accept there’ll always be someone who needs your help?”

That must have been a bit more honesty than Nick could take. He didn’t answer, though when he got out of the car, he came around to the passenger side and waited for John to get out as well, which was reassuring. “Where do you want to go?”

Moving from his seat to stand beside Nick proved tricky. John automatically tried to brace himself with a hand currently muffled in bandages, realized his mistake, and stumbled into Nick’s arms.

He didn’t mind a hug, but looking like a fool wasn’t an ideal way to get one.

“Steady.” Nick patted his arm. “Takes some getting used to?”

“Aye, and by the time I have, the doctor will be taking the splints off, and I’ll have it all to do again.”

“It sucks; it really does.”

“Complaining won’t mend it any faster.”

Nick smiled, which was good to see. “No, but it helps sometimes. Complain as much as you want to, and I promise I’ll dish out plenty of sympathy.”

“You’re tempting me into bad ways.”

“From day one, according to some people,” Nick murmured, turning to face the sea.

John winced but didn’t comment. There were still some people after all these years who held to it that Nick, a foreigner for all that his family was from Traighshee, had seduced John and turned him gay, ludicrous a notion though it was and flying in the face of the facts.

Not that John intended to share the details of those furtive, risky trips to the mainland in search of release in the barren years before he met Nick and came out.

“Let’s go down near the water,” he suggested, since the point of the break in the journey was to get Nick a bit less tense. “There are some rocks out there. Maybe we’ll see some seals.”

For all his time in Scotland, Nick was still easily bribed with the thought of wildlife, and as John had suspected, he agreed readily enough. “I didn’t bring the camera.”

“If we see some and you wish you had, we’ll come back next week and try to take some pictures,” John promised. Nick claimed to be a poor photographer, but he did a fine job of it as far as John was concerned.

They made their way down toward the water. It was a less rough shoreline than some, though the waves weren’t the sort to appeal to families with children. There was no one here now but the seagulls, their cries stretched thin by the blowing wind. John reached into the inside pocket of his jacket to find the hat he kept there—Nick was already wearing one—then remembered he wouldn’t be able to put it on with one hand.

“Help?” he said, raising an eyebrow, and Nick put it on his head, pulling it down until it was comfortably over his ears.

They wandered without purpose, dancing back from a wave venturing higher than expected, like children, yelping as they tried to keep their boots dry, picking up flat stones to skim out across the calm water beyond the waves.

The smell of the sea stirred John as it always had, imparting a wild, invigorating tang to each breath. He couldn’t have lived inland out of sight of the water for a million pounds, were anyone inclined to offer it. He’d suffocate.

He didn’t mind holidays. Nick had taken him to Las Vegas three years before, and they’d done all the tourist trips, including the Grand Canyon with a long drive through the desert to get there. John had loved every minute, relishing the chance to travel but secure in the knowledge he’d be heading home at the end of the fortnight.

Just as well. He’d found the slot machines entirely too hungry for his dollar bills, money which didn’t seem real and therefore easy to waste.

“There,” he said, catching Nick’s arm. “On the rocks, see? Three bulls.”

Three sleek gray seals lay basking in the sun, their glossy black pelts belying their name.

“I see them.” Nick dropped his voice to a murmur, though the seals were too far away to hear him unless he yelled. “I wonder how old they are? That one has scarring on his side. From fighting with another seal, maybe?”

“Aye, or a run-in with a propeller. They can live up to fifty years. If that one’s our age, it’s no surprise he’s looking a wee bit battered.”

“They have lives we don’t know anything about.” Nick sounded wistful. John wasn’t sure if it was because he wanted to know more about the lives of seals, or he wished he knew less about the lives—and afterlives—of people.

“Torn, aren’t you?” John asked.

Nick looked at him. “Yes. Part of me wants to stay here all day so I don’t have to deal. The other part wants to go now. Get it over with.” He smiled faintly. “I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, that you know what I’m thinking.”

“You still surprise me too,” John assured him.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think I’m pretty predictable these days.”

John was about to argue with this when the wind blew up around them like a mini tornado, tugging at their clothes and lashing them with stinging sand. He put up an arm instinctively, protecting his face, and opened his mouth to say something—he didn’t know what—to Nick. But the sand blew into his mouth, and he coughed, doing his best to spit it out and not succeeding.

He was well acquainted with the sudden turns the weather took on the islands, from a road half-wet on one side, bone-dry on the other, to gales strong enough to knock a man off his feet, but this wasn’t natural.

Supernatural, yes.

Choking on grit, he grabbed Nick’s arm, tugging him closer and away from the twisting cloud. It followed them—no, herded them, chivying them along the same way a sheepdog controlled a flock.

Nick was in no better state than John, eyes watering, face coated with sand clinging to skin wet with spray. He dragged his sweater up over his mouth and ducked his head, squinting. John did likewise, forced into releasing Nick, which didn’t please him. He wanted his husband’s hand in his, the two of them linked.

Step by step, they moved along the beach. Their destination was easy to deduce. Back to the car. Seemed Nancy was in no mood to wait.

Skin scoured raw, every breath bringing more of the fine-grained sand into his mouth and nose, John was close to panicking, only anger keeping him calm, as if the two emotions canceled each other out. Was the woman soft in the head? Killing them wouldn’t help her one little bit.

Nick opened the passenger-side door and let John in, blocking some of the flying sand with his body as John fell inside the car, hurt hand cradled to his chest to keep it from being bumped into anything. He wanted to say Get in the backseat! so Nick wouldn’t have to go around the car—the man was fit enough; surely he could climb over and get behind the wheel even if it was a challenge—but his mouth was like the desert, dry and full of sand.

Somehow Nick shut John’s door and stumbled around the front of the car. The sound of the sand against the frame and windows was deafening; John wondered if there’d be permanent damage to the glass and paint job, not that it mattered. Nick wrenched the driver’s-side door open and fell into the car in much the same way John had moments before.

When he slammed the door shut, everything went quiet.

The wind stopped, and with it the sand fell to the earth, a thin, glittering layer of it coating the hood of the car like sugar on a Christmas biscuit. The only sound was of the two of them coughing, trying to catch their breaths.

“Okay?” Nick asked, and John nodded.

“She wasn’t—” He coughed some more, then tried a second time. “Wasn’t too keen on our detour.”

“No, she wasn’t.” Nick looked grim as he dug the keys from his pocket and started the engine.

“I don’t like that she’s capable of so much violence.” John glanced at the necklace, still in place on the window. The small package looked anything but ominous, yet he edged away from it and closer to Nick. “Can she hear us, do you think?”

If she could, he wasn’t planning to mention the fact her husband was dead and going home was no solution to her problem.

Nick pulled away, jerking at the wheel and changing gear with angry force. “Is there anything we can use to wash our mouths out?”

That answered his question. John dug around in the knapsack at his feet. He’d packed refillable water bottles, two apples, and a box of cherry Bakewell cakes, knowing Nick would need a hit of sugar once he’d dealt with Nancy. He wedged one of the bottles between his knees, opened it, and passed it to Nick, who took a gulp, then spat out the window.

Clearing his mouth took three swills of water, but John made them small ones. He’d have liked to stop at the first stream they saw, not to drink from—that wasn’t safe when a dead sheep might be fouling the water—but to wash in. Nancy would probably see that as reason to drown them.

Nick was staring out the windscreen as he drove. “I hate that you have to deal with this.”

“Aye, well. _I_ hate that _you_ have to deal with it, so I suppose we’re even.”

“I don’t know how you can think that. If I wasn’t—” Nick swallowed and shook his head as if shedding something more troublesome than the fine sand raining down onto the seat. “Okay, sorry. We’re not going there, right?”

“And by _there_ , you mean we’re not entertaining that topic of discussion,” John said loudly, alarmed at the thought Nancy might misunderstand.

Nick obviously caught on and added, “Because we’re definitely taking Nancy home. That’s what we’re here on the island to do.”

They were both silent for a few moments, waiting to see if anything happened, but when nothing did, John said, “You’re worth any amount of dealing with this, so you’re right. No need to discuss it.”

He imagined half a dozen thoughts running through Nick’s head, things he would almost but not quite say. He could also imagine his responses to them if they had been spoken. It was a conversation they didn’t need to have, and he was relieved they weren’t having it. Better for both of them.

The house, when they reached it, was a small one, set back from the road with no neighbors in view. A track led up to the front door, wide enough for a car but rutted and overgrown with weeds. The house had a desolate air to it, the untended vegetable plot reverting to grass, a window splattered white with bird droppings, but John felt more relief than regret when he saw the telltale signs of a house left empty. He mourned the declining population on the islands, but in this case, when it meant they wouldn’t have an audience or, worse yet, more targets for Nancy’s turbulent emotions, it was a blessing.

Warmth struck his cheek, though the clouds hid the sun. Wondering, he turned his head, then touched the window with his fingertip, snatching it back a moment later with a curse. The packaged necklace radiated heat, affecting the glass around it.

“The window will melt down if she keeps this up.”

“She’s drawing energy from this place. It’s home. Hers, theirs.” Nick turned into the narrow drive. “Places have power. You remember what happened when I went to the standing stones on Lewis?”

Older than the Stonehenge circle, dating back five thousand years, the Callanish stones were irregular, massive, thrusting up to the sky like giants reaching for the stars. They’d brought Nick to his knees when he’d tripped and smacked his hand against one to regain his balance. He’d told John later it’d been as if one of the stones had landed on his back.

“ _I felt them. The people who raised them, the people who died there. God, so many of those, you have no idea._ ” He’d taken a gulp of his pint. “ _And the legend saying they’re men turned to stone by an enchanter?_ ”

“ _That’s not true, surely?_ ” John had protested.

“ _I don’t want to talk about it,_ ” Nick had said flatly. “ _Ever._ ”

And he never had, which hadn’t stopped John from wondering now and then. But sometimes there were things it might be better not to know.

“Why would this place have so much power?” he asked now. “This place in particular?”

“No idea.” Nick glanced at the house as he brought the car to a stop. “I should have thought to look it up before we came. It might have explained why she’s so powerful.” He shut off the engine and grimaced. “Or maybe not. Maybe there doesn’t have to be a reason.”

“Ask her?” John suggested.

Nick nodded. “Chances are she doesn’t know either, but I guess it’s worth a shot. What do you think? Not that this is your last opportunity to bail, but it’s a good time, if you want to.” He turned and looked at John properly. “I wouldn’t blame you, I swear.”

“I know that, you daft bugger,” John said with affection. “And no, of course I’m not leaving you to do this on your own.”

“Of course you’re not.” Nick clenched his jaw, relaxed it, and said, “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Chapter Seven

The necklace in hand, peeled free of the tape, Nick walked toward the front door, heart beating faster than usual, but his nerves settling now the waiting was over.

“She’d use the back door,” John pointed out, his voice hushed as if he were in church. “I doubt that one’s been opened in decades.” He sighed. “No, I’m wrong. They’d have used it to carry the coffins through.”

Nick wished John hadn’t mentioned Gareth and Nancy’s joint funeral. Too sad, the coffins carried out of the home for the short journey to the graveyard, the mourners trailing after, family and friends stunned by the double tragedy.

Did Nancy have any memory of Gareth’s death or awareness of her own? Often ghosts didn’t retain that knowledge, which left them frustrated and confused by their inability to interact with the world. Nick had pieced together some theories over the years, and from what he’d gathered, many ghosts were stuck in a loop—like goldfish in a bowl. They couldn’t learn from what they discovered in their attempts to communicate and couldn’t accept their deaths because they kept returning to the same starting point, memory erased.

Those who broke free were often the scarily powerful ones, angry, desperate for a chance to return to a life that no longer existed.

Nancy seemed to have the power without the awareness. Nick wasn’t sure how to handle her, but it wasn’t like there were rules to follow.

He braced himself as he reached for the doorknob, preparing for an onslaught of words and images when the door swung open. But the handle didn’t turn. “Locked,” he said. “All that for nothing.” He knew John would understand.

“Let’s try the back before we resort to breaking a window.”

They went around the house through a combination of weeds and what might have been an actual lawn at some point, the unappealing tangle slowing their pace. The back door was locked too. Nick tugged at it in frustration. “It would be helpful if you added unlocking doors to your repertoire of driving and sandstorms,” he muttered to Nancy .

“It would, wouldn’t it?” John looked around and picked up a stone. “Here, move back.”

The little diamond-shaped glass window in the door that was nearest the handle was already cracked. It didn’t seem to take much effort for John to break it the rest of the way with the softball-sized stone. “Don’t cut yourself,” Nick said, knowing John didn’t need the reminder but unable to help himself.

John rolled his eyes. “This old glass is so thick it’d be a challenge to cut bread with it.” He used the small rock, then his elbow to knock in the broken glass, then reached through carefully and unlocked the door.

Nick hesitated on the threshold. Doors were places where magic gathered thick as the midges that plagued him in the warm months. The stone circles around the world had fallen prey to erosion, weather, and shifts in the earth, destroying their shape and purpose, but the original design usually called for at least one lintel across two vertical stones, and if that wasn’t a doorway, what was?

The necklace warmed in his hand, a gentle encouragement this time, as if Nancy was happy, but hesitant too. Did she see the dark room, the cold fireplace?

Pressing his lips together, Nick stepped into the kitchen, avoiding the glass on the floor, and set the necklace on the section of the countertop that was a wooden butcher’s block. Years of scrubbing had left it smooth.

“There. You’re home.”

The air shimmered, dust motes gathering, spinning wildly to take Nancy’s shape, though it was impossible to see her features clearly. He smelled baking bread, fish frying—homey scents. The fireplace, empty of peat, glowed with the echo of a hundred fires, and steam poured from the spout of the electric kettle, unaccompanied by any sound of water boiling.

Eerie as hell, and Nick was glad of the solid presence of his husband at his back.

They waited—he wasn’t sure why, maybe for some more definitive sign she was at peace, happy, done—but Nancy continued to move about the space. It must have looked as it had when she’d lived here. Unopened mail was tucked behind a small crock, and a stack of unwashed dishes was piled in the sink. Nancy twisted the faucet’s handle, and although the water didn’t turn on, she went through the motions of washing the dishes. Nick caught the faint scent of lavender dishwashing liquid.

“Can you see her?” he asked.

“Aye. Is this why she wanted to come home?” John’s voice was quiet, but Nick heard the disbelief in it. “To do the bloody dishes?”

Nick was convinced it wasn’t that simple. “There has to be something more to it.” The ghost turned toward the back hallway and called in her thin, wispy voice, _“Gareth! Dinner!”_ “She’s calling for her husband,” Nick said. He didn’t assume John had heard her, even if there were times in the past when John had both seen and heard ghosts.

“Ah.” John didn’t sound happy. “That’s not good. Unless he’s here too? Waiting for her, maybe? I’d do that if I went first and they gave me a choice.” He eased from one foot to the other, rolling his shoulders, unconsciously preparing himself for whatever came next, Nick thought.

“I don’t think he is. I feel her, not him.” Nick wasn’t sure how he used the extra sense he had, but he interpreted what it told him easily. “The place is quiet. I’m not sure there’s another ghost for miles, which is kinda weird.”

“Not the word I’d use.”

Nancy called again, her tone sharper now, more insistent, a hint of panic surfacing.

Nick stepped forward. “Nancy? Can you hear me?”

She turned, staring through him, then placed her hand on the kitchen table. Abruptly, she went from a vague outline to a solid shape. Maybe she’d drawn in enough energy now to manifest, but how long she could sustain it was anyone’s guess.

“You. You brought me home.”

A glance at John, wide-eyed and licking his lips nervously, told Nick he wasn’t alone in seeing and hearing. With a reassuring smile for John, he cleared his throat. “Yes, I did. It’s what you wanted, right? One last look at your home?”

“Last? I dinna ken what you mean by that. This is where I live, me and Gareth.” She smiled, patting the table with a curious air of pride. “They’ll have to carry us out of here feet first.”

God, he hated this part. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but...they already did.”

“You’re not making a bit of sense. Lost, are you? Looking for directions? Don’t worry; my Gareth knows this island like the back of his hand.” She glanced around as if expecting to see him walking into the room. “Gareth!”

“He’s not here,” Nick said. “He’s gone.”

“Gone? Did you see him out on the road, then? He might be of a mind to catch a fish or two for our tea. He says fishing keeps him young.” Nancy seemed to have forgotten the past few days, not to mention the previous months.

“You’re dead,” Nick told her. There came a point where beating around the bush was postponing the inevitable. “You’re dead, and so is Gareth.”

“Dead! Don’t be ridiculous. I’m standing here in my own kitchen. I don’t know what prank you’re playing, young man, but I—” She broke off, gaze unfocused, and the solidity of her form wavered. “You drove me home,” she said, voice small. “Gareth was supposed to come fetch me, but you drove me home.”

“He came for you,” Nick reassured her. “He did. But on the way...” He faltered, but it needed to be said. God, this was the second time she’d learned this news. He felt for the person, nurse, police officer, or family member who’d been in his position, but most of his sympathy was reserved for Nancy. She and Gareth had deserved that long life together, and they’d been cheated out of the past decade or so at least. “On the way he was hit by a car. I’m not sure of the details. It doesn’t matter. He died, and hearing the news killed you. It’s terrible, and I’m more sorry than I can tell you, but you need to accept it and leave this place. There’s nothing for you here. You...you’ve been dead for months.”

“Dead,” she repeated and held up her hands, studying them. “I canna touch things the way I used to. Canna feel the air on my face or smell the sea.”

“No.”

“But I can make you do my bidding.” She nodded, a grim, satisfied smile curving her lips. “Who are you, then, that you can see me? And who’s yon man behind you?”

“I’m his husband,” John said. “And he’s talented that way.”

“Husband?” Nancy’s unpleasant smile dimmed, but her next words made it clear she was more interested in her own metaphorical skin than in what Nick and John’s relationship entailed. “You brought me here. Bring Gareth as well.”

“I can’t. I don’t know where he is.”

“You found me; why canna ye find him?”

Nick still struggled to explain his abilities and limitations, and Nancy seemed less capable of understanding than some of the ghosts he’d interacted with. “Most people, when they die, they’re gone. It could be they go to heaven, but I know they don’t stay here.”

“I did.”

“You’re one in a million. And I didn’t find you on purpose.”

She narrowed her eyes. “My necklace. Gareth gave it to me as an anniversary gift last year. Our fiftieth. I was nineteen the year we married. I didn’t turn twenty until a few months after our wedding day.”

“I found it at the hospital and took it with me when we left. Is there someone I could give it to for you? Someone you’d like to have it, to remember you by?” Nick hoped reminding her of loved ones who were still alive might help her accept the need to move on.

“There’s no one. Not now. No children. My sister passed away. Only him. My Gareth.” She sliced through the air with her hand, a vicious slap at nothing that sent Nick reeling backward, struck by an invisible fist, the breath knocked out of him. “Find him!”

John caught Nick. One-handed, the two of them off balance, but John steadied him so Nick didn’t fall. He was glad of that. For Nancy to see herself as stronger was the last thing he wanted.

Even if he suspected it was true.

She stood on her land, rooted to it, drawing power from the earth, elemental, ancient. And there was something about the way she used that power that made Nick wonder if they shared an ability. Maybe she’d never developed or used it, but what had lain dormant was awake now.

“I can’t—”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

The trite saying was accompanied by a bolt of energy arcing across the room and directed at John this time. Nick sensed it, a ripple in the air, a stink of scorched rubber, and stepped in front of John without thought, absorbing the attack. Pain sizzled through him, tweaking every nerve with merciless fingers, but he shoved it aside. It was illusory, and if he acknowledged it as real, the effects would linger.

Anger and fear made him more stern with her than he intended. “Leave him alone, or I’ll throw the necklace into the sea and walk away.”

“You wouldn’t.” She whispered it, crumpling in on herself. “To be so cruel to an auld woman...”

“It wouldn’t be cruelty; it would be self-defense. I want to help you, but you have to listen to me.” Nick tried to sound convincing and patient, though he wasn’t feeling either.

Nancy wept, one hand over her face, as if the tears shamed her. When she took her hand away, her face was set in harsh lines. “I have to see my Gareth. I canna do anything else until he’s here.”

“Look, even if I tried to get him here, there’s no guarantee—”

Admitting that there was a possibility, no matter how slight, he might be able to bring Gareth home was a terrible mistake. The only consolation, Nick found himself thinking from his new location flat on his back on the cold tile floor with a furious ghost on top of him, was that Nancy was focused on him instead of on John.

“Find my Gareth! You find him, or I’ll— You’ll be as sorry as you’ve ever been if you don’t, so _do it_.” Darkness bled into her irises, and the icy chill of her hands penetrated his jacket and shirt, leaving his arm burning with cold. “I haven’t anything left to lose.”

“Get off him,” John said. He stood over them, unable to touch Nancy to pull her away. “Now.”

Nancy lifted her head and flicked a hand in a dismissive gesture with devastating effects. John stumbled back from the force of the energy she’d sent his way, and slammed into a wall with a groan of pain escaping him. Nick struggled futilely. It seemed wrong she was so powerful when she weighed nothing.

“I’ll try,” he said on a gasp. “Let me up, damn it. Get the hell off me.”

She vanished, reappearing by the table, the shift abrupt enough to leave Nick sucking in a breath to steady himself. “Do it, then. Bring me my man.” The longing in her voice enriched the words, left them sweet, dripping honey, but Nick, rising to his feet, bruised and aching, didn’t trust her good mood.

In life, she’d probably been a decent, kind woman, but this was the afterlife and all bets were off.

John took an unsteady step forward, massaging his lower back and grimacing. “Nick, love, is this—” He hesitated, but it wasn’t difficult to fill in the blanks.

“Is it safe? No. Can I do it? Also probably no.” He raised his hand, warding off Nancy’s advance. “Back off! I’m giving you honesty. But I’ll try, okay? And I’ll need something of his to use as an anchor for his spirit. Something like your necklace.”

“His Bible,” Nancy said. “He had it as a Sunday-school prize, and he read a chapter every night. It’ll be by the bed upstairs. You fetch it. I’ll watch your man.”

Nick didn’t want to go deeper into the house, but if he did, John was coming with him, not staying as a hostage. “No, we’ll go together. John?”

A thought occurred to him. Had the house been cleared? Of perishables, yes, or the smell of rotten, moldy food would be tainting the air. Everything else seemed in place, though, puzzling Nick. If there were no heirs, wouldn’t a decision have been made to donate furniture and clothing if nothing else?

Then he saw John step around the table but through one of the chairs as if unable to see it, and Nick realized fully the strength of Nancy’s will. The house had been emptied of anything valuable, but she’d expected to see it as it had been and made her belief reality—of a sort. Nick put out a hand and touched the table, then watched his hand pass through the spindles that made up the back of the chair.

All the personal items were figments of Nancy’s imagination, and she’d projected them onto him too. John was the only one of them seeing reality.

Which meant the Bible wasn’t around. Shit.

“I’m seeing stuff that isn’t real,” he said to John under his breath. “Some kind of delusion she has of how things used to look when she was alive.” Under any other circumstances he’d have told John to run, to get as far away as possible and not look back, but that wouldn’t be any safer than where they were now. He thought he’d been clear hurting John wasn’t an option.

“What do you mean?” John seemed oblivious to what had become clear to Nick, and there wasn’t time to explain, not the way he needed to.

“Stay with me. I have to know you’re safe.” He reached out and took a fistful of John’s shirt and tugged him closer. “We’ll be right back with that Bible,” he said with more volume and kept walking toward what looked like a back hallway where a staircase might be. He had to hope they wouldn’t step through a nonexistent floor or onto rotted boards full of nails.

They stepped around the corner, and it _felt_ like there was a wall between them and Nancy. Nick decided to risk it.

“It’s a hallucination, some kind of ghost dream, I don’t know. You have to tell me if I’m about to step through a floor that doesn’t exist. The stairs are real, aren’t they?” The thought that half the house might be missing and he wouldn’t know it was frightening.

“Real enough,” John said, kicking one with the toe of his shoe.

“She thinks we’re going to come back down with a book that’s probably been gone for months, and I’m not sure what she’ll do when that doesn’t happen.”

John, his keen mind catching on, whispered, “What if we pretend there’s a Bible?”

“That could work, but it _won’t_ work. I mean, we might fool her, but I won’t have an item to draw Gareth back.”

If he could. Did he dare? A ghost was separated from the world but still of it. Nancy was proving that with her ability to whip up storms and take over machinery. Gareth, on the other hand, was...elsewhere.

“Good.” John gave a shudder Nick guessed was rooted in superstitious fear. “I don’t _want_ him back. I read _The Monkey’s Paw_ at school, thank you very much.”

“I wouldn’t bring back his body, only his spirit, but yeah, I’m with you there.”

The stairs creaked, but so did the ones Nick ran up and down at home. They reached the top without incident and found the bedroom Nancy and Gareth must have shared. The wooden floor was bare, scuffed in places, the marks left by the bed clear to his eyes. The wallpaper was a faded blue, scattered with tiny flowers, once pretty, now peeling in the corners from the damp of a house left empty. It didn’t take long for that to happen by the sea.

Compelled to finish the deception, Nick walked to what would’ve been the head of the bed and reached out to pick up a nonexistent book.

Nancy appeared, her face inches from his. “Wrong side of the bed.”

Nick wasn’t the kind of person to shriek and levitate when he received a shock, but he jerked backward, clammy with sweat, his heart thudding hard and fast. John muttered something Nick didn’t try to hear. His focus was on Nancy.

His mouth was stiff, but he forced it into a smile. “Is it? Sorry.”

The room flickered, and Nick saw it as it had been, the bed made freshly, a thin quilt smoothed over white sheets, rugs laid over the wooden floor. What had been unfaded rectangles on the wallpaper became framed pictures of local landmarks and a photograph of Nancy and Gareth on their wedding day, posed, formal, but charming for all that.

It should have been a peaceful, relaxing scene. Instead, Nick’s heart was pounding as he walked around the foot of the imaginary bed to the side that must have been Gareth’s and saw the Bible sitting on the bedside table. It felt as if the book was waiting for him, and he supposed on one level it was.

He reached out for it, and to his surprise, it felt real, for all that it was semitransparent. “I’ve got it,” he said and heard Nancy reply, “Good. Bring it downstairs.”

When he turned his head to look for her, she had vanished again.

“Would it be unkind if I said she’s not my favorite person?” John asked, and Nick found himself smiling, though he wasn’t at all amused.

“If it is, we’re both unkind,” he said grimly. “Whatever you do, stay behind me on the stairs. I don’t like the way she looks at you.” He didn’t know what Nancy was contemplating, but he was sure he wouldn’t like it.

“I’m a grown man, Dominic, and I don’t need you protecting me as if I were a child.” John held up his bandaged hand when Nick rounded on him. “I’m not disagreeing with you, and I’m not saying I’ll go against your wishes. You’re the expert when it comes to this, and we both know it. It’s a reminder, that’s all.”

“I don’t need a reminder. If you’re willing to admit I’m the expert, then listen to me when I say I can do this.”

“That’s not what you said when we were downstairs.” John kept his voice low, not that it would keep Nancy from overhearing him if she wanted to. “You said you’d try, and you say what you mean.”

“I do,” Nick agreed. “I understand why she needs me to try, and I told her I would. And I’m going to.”

Anger that Nick guessed was born of fear sharpened John’s voice when he spoke again. “I’ve known you long enough to have seen how badly things can go wrong when they do. This is exactly the sort of situation that’s likely to get away from you, and I’m not about to keep my mouth shut and pretend I’m on board when I’m not.” His good hand clenched into a fist. “That’s not what you want from me, not when it comes right down to it, and you know it.”

Nick forced himself to pause and breathe. He understood why John was angry, and it was difficult to blame him. “You’re right. It isn’t. But it’d kill me if anything happened to you, so remember that too.”

“It’s not hard to grasp when I feel the same way about you.” The corner of John’s mouth twitched, the grimace he gave when he came across a dead sheep or saw a nasty murder on the news—pity and revulsion mixed. “I don’t want to kiss you here. I don’t like the place. But if we were anywhere else, I’d have my mouth on yours, and I’m telling you that.”

Nick nodded. “So you owe me one, and I’ll collect it later.” He added, “With interest,” wanting to see the glint in John’s eyes. He drew strength from John’s love, always had, always would, and he needed the reminder of their day-to-day life to ground him.

They’d leave this place. Buy lobster, take the ferry home. Make love, or if the day had drained them too much, lie in each other’s arms until sleep took them and then wake to spend another day together. They had that, and if they were lucky, they’d have it for years to come.

Nancy and Gareth had nothing beyond memories for her and the possibility of a reunion in an afterlife Nick knew no more about than anyone else. When he drew people back, it wasn’t from there but somewhere closer. Every instinct he had told him Gareth was much farther away, out of reach. Nancy could go to him, maybe, but Gareth couldn’t return to guide her.

She needed to take that journey alone, and Nick was sure she had the courage for it, but not the desire. She wanted her old life back, not a new one, and that was impossible.

So he’d try, fail, and then what? God, he wished John was off the island, safe from Nancy’s possible reprisal for what she’d see as Nick’s betrayal.

Too late now.

They went downstairs to the kitchen, the imaginary Bible cradled carefully in Nick’s hands. “Okay,” he told Nancy, who was standing next to the table again as if it provided some kind of comfort for her. “Here it is.”

“And you can use it to bring my Gareth home?” She looked hopeful, eager, and it was hard not to feel for her in that moment, hard not to imagine how desperately she ached for the man who had been her partner for so many decades.

“I don’t know,” Nick said honestly. For one thing, the Bible wasn’t real, but there were people who’d argue that the ghosts weren’t real either, and he knew the truth in that. Maybe her belief in it would be sufficient.

“But you’ll try?”

He took a step forward. “I’ll try. On one condition. You have to promise me that nothing happens to John. That you won’t touch him again. Won’t hurt him.”

Nancy pursed her lips as she reached out to stroke the edge of the table, her face thoughtful, maybe considering loopholes to exploit.

“Swear it!”

She surrendered. “I won’t harm him; you have my word.”

“Okay.” If there’d been an actual chair, he would have sat. As it was, the table and the countertop seemed like poor options, so he’d have to remain standing and hope he didn’t fall down. “Whatever you do, don’t distract me. I’m not sure how this is going to work, and I need to be able to concentrate.”

He closed his eyes and pictured Gareth’s face from the photos, tried to imagine the man alive or at least in the room with them. He hoped Gareth had loved his wife and was missing her as keenly as she missed him. That would help. “ _Your wife is here._ ” He sent the words out into a universe that consisted of many layers. “ _She needs you. Come home to her._ ”

For the longest time, there was nothing. He shouted into a dense fog, his words muffled, smothered. With every attempt to reach Gareth, Nick’s energy lessened, leaving him weak physically and mentally. He was aware of his slowing heartbeat, then nauseated when it sped up, each violent thud painful. He shook as if he stood in an icy wind, wearing wet clothing, then was drenched in sweat, his skin burning.

_Defenses._ Nick fought to keep his focus through waves of sleepiness. _Not supposed to do this._

He pictured John fishing by the loch, sending his line spinning out over the calm, amber-tinted water, casting over and over, infinitely patient. The image strong in his mind, down to the faded patches on John’s jeans and the tin of wriggling worms at John’s feet, Nick tried again.

One more time, he promised himself. One more; then I’ll stop.

Except, he’d made that promise half a dozen times and yet still kept trying. It was partly for Nancy, but he’d be lying if he claimed he didn’t view finding Gareth as a challenge.

He heard shouting that wasn’t his and swam up to awareness to discover he was lying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. His eyelids weighed a hundred pounds each, and inhaling a lungful of air was hard to do.

“Enough,” John snapped. His thigh was warm under Nick’s head, a pillow he was grateful for. “He promised to try, and he has. You have to see that.”

“He said he could bring my Gareth home to me!” Nancy was angry, and Nick closed his eyes, though he wasn’t looking at her, exhausted by the thought of her existence. He wanted to sleep, but there was something he was supposed to be doing. He couldn’t remember what it was.

John sounded far away. “It’s too much. Wherever Gareth’s gone, he’s either so far away he can’t hear us or it’s not possible for him to come back. He’s waiting for you. You have to go to him; that’s all there is to it. I won’t let Nick keep trying, not at the risk of his life.”

“I can do it,” Nick mumbled. His mouth was dry, and he wasn’t sure where the Bible was. Had he dropped it? “Try again.”

“Yes!” Nancy sounded triumphant, vindicated. “You see? He’s all right.”

“He’s lying on the floor and can barely lift his head!” John was shouting again. “In what world is that ‘all right’?”

“He’s young! Strong! He has years in front of him. How can you deny me years of my own with my husband?”

“Because you’ve _had_ them already.” John sounded reasonable, not angry now, but Nick heard the pent-up emotion behind the words. “Plenty of them, if not as many as you’d like, but more than your threescore and ten, so that’s something. And if you’re a religious woman, you should trust to your faith and believe your man’s waiting for you in heaven.”

Muzzy, the skin across his forehead drum-tight, the smallest movement setting off stabbing pains in his head as if his brain were spiked and rolling around loose inside his skull, Nick waited for Nancy’s reply.

“Oh, he’s there, right enough, but me?” Nancy’s voice was desolate. “I’m not a good woman.”

“And what have you ever done that’s so sinful there’s no place for you by his side?” John clicked his tongue, impatient, reassuring. “I’m not overfond of the kirk myself, but from what I remember, the Lord’s a forgiving sort.”

“Suffer little children,” Nancy whispered. “There was a baby— There was a man before Gareth, when I was on the mainland, working in a factory. I didn’t mean to lie with him, but he had a way with him, and I...I got rid of it, and after that I couldn’t— not again, and I never told him! I never told my Gareth why the bairns never came. I’m going to hell, not heaven, and I’ll never see Gareth again.”

She sobbed when she finished, harsh, ugly sounds torn from her by the memory, but beneath the sorrow and guilt, Nick sensed her utter inflexibility.

He pushed himself up on one elbow. “Let me try again.” His voice wasn’t much above a whisper, but determination made him stronger. “Once more. If I can’t do it—”

“You can,” Nancy insisted, wiping her face dry. “Please.”

It was the first time he remembered her asking nicely. He looked at John, whose brow was furrowed with concern. “One more time, that’s all.”

“And then what?” John murmured, but he squeezed Nick’s arm. “Aye. Do what you have to, love. You know I’ll be here.”

An idea came to him. “Nancy, let me hold your necklace. I know—it’s yours, not Gareth’s—but I haven’t been able to reach him, and I think it’s because the Bible, um, isn’t powerful enough somehow.”

She moved to the countertop where he’d left the chain and picked it up. The way she lifted it, carefully and with something like reverence, made it clear to Nick how

much she valued it. Carrying it the few steps across the room, however, made Nancy’s form flicker and waver as if the simple task was too much effort for her.

Nick heard John take a quick breath and guessed John had noticed too, but he knew the solution wasn’t that simple. Sure, they could trick Nancy into depleting her energy, but she’d come back, drawing from any available source.

Worst case, that would be them, though he doubted she had the darkness needed for that. She was pushy, yeah, but not malevolent.

He sat cross-legged and accepted the necklace from her, expecting it to weigh more than it did. The metal lay across his palm, a cool, thin line. He closed his hand into a fist and shut his eyes too.

_Third time’s the charm. This is about the thirty-third, but what the hell._

It should have worked, and for a moment he thought it had. He sensed a presence, loving, confused, a groping hand brushing his, homing in on the necklace, but as quickly as it came, it vanished. Desperate, he chased it, sliding through dreams into nightmares, his thoughts creating a maze, its walls impenetrable, too high to see over. Twists and turns, dead ends, and a horrible sense of being stalked and herded toward a destination he didn’t want to reach made his footsteps lag.

He didn’t belong here. Gareth would’ve been guided through to his ultimate destination, maybe, but Nick was lost.

Totally lost.

Chapter Eight

John was watching Nick like a hawk, so he saw the moment when Nick went limp and began to flop back onto the floor. Moving quickly, he shoved the jacket he’d removed earlier under Nick’s head in time to keep it from cracking on the tile. “Nick?” There was no answer, though while Nick was pale, he seemed to be peacefully asleep, not in any torment. “Nick, love, come back to me.”

“Don’t disturb him,” Nancy pleaded. “When he comes back, he has to have Gareth with him.”

Pushed to his limits, John rounded on her. “Close your mouth, woman. Any version of Gareth he finds won’t be your Gareth, not the way you remember him. You’re dead, both of you, and it’s impossible to know how that might have changed you. Were you this stubborn and selfish when you were alive?”

Nancy looked shocked. “I’m not _selfish_! My life was cut short by something beyond my control, and all I want is to be reunited with the man I love. Is that so much to ask?”

John made sure Nick was comfortable and safe, then stood to confront Nancy. “Yes! It bloody well is. Nick’s a good man, and he can’t bear to see anyone suffer, so he’ll help you until there’s no breath left in his body out of a sense of obligation. Or until I put a stop to this, which is what I’m doing _right now_.”

“You dinna have the power. Not to stop him or to help me.” Nancy sniffed, her disdain cutting. “You’re a useless waste of space, as I’m sure you’ve been told before.”

“I’m not used to hearing it from strangers quick to judge and quicker to make mistakes,” John snapped. “And you’re right. I canna help you, and if I could, I wouldn’t. But Nick...oh, I have power over him, and you’d better hope he’s himself when he wakes, or you’ll be banging on hell’s door, begging them to let you in to escape me.”

“What can you do?” The sneering smile became a rictus, flesh sloughing away until her face was all bones and tattered skin. “I’m dead. Beyond hurting.”

Covering his revulsion, John nodded sharply. “Aye, well, we’ll see about that.”

Crouching, John prised open Nick’s fingers and scooped up the necklace. Working one-handed made him clumsy, but Nick seemed glad to relinquish the chain, his grip slackening at the first tug.

“Give it back to him!” Nancy shrieked.

John hadn’t mentioned it to Nick, but he’d come prepared to defend them from Nancy. Old wives’ tales held a smidgen of truth, in his experience, and every ghost story he’d read agreed salt and ghosts didn’t mix, though the reason why that was so varied from tale to tale. In any case, they’d used a circle of salt for protection before, years ago, after Nick’s dad had died in a plane crash and dozens of ghosts had wanted Nick’s attention all at once, and it had worked then. He slid the chain into one deep pocket of his jeans and drew a plastic bag filled with salt out of the other.

With no time for the niceties, he tore a hole in the bag with his teeth, salt clinging to his lips, gritty as the sand earlier. He took out a handful and scattered the salt over the advancing Nancy.

Nancy shrieked and vanished. John only paused for a moment to see if she reappeared—she was bound to at some point—then went to work, pouring the salt in a circle around Nick’s supine body. He wanted badly to double-check and make sure Nick was all right, breathing properly, but didn’t feel he had the time.

They’d passed a peat bog before the rocky area the house had been built on. It would be the perfect place to dispose of the necklace if he got there before Nancy found the energy to return and realize what he had planned. He didn’t think there was enough salt in the torn bag to send her off again.

Clouds had formed overhead since they’d been indoors. He walked briskly, searching for the right spot where the gold chain would sink instantly and irrevocably. There. Red-leaved sundew flowers, wilted now, their growing season past a few weeks back, were visible among soggy sphagnum moss at the edge of a bog pool. John didn’t hesitate; as soon as he spotted what seemed a likely location, he dug the chain from his pocket and drew back his arm to throw it into the bog.

Nancy appeared in front of him, blocking his way, her mouth open wide in a silent scream. He flinched back before he could think, his reaction instinctual. The ghost’s ice-cold fingers brushed his forearm, and he fumbled and dropped the gold chain onto the ground.

“You can’t!” she shrieked. John understood even though there was little force behind her words; they sounded more like a whistle of the wind.

He dropped to his knees to retrieve the chain. It had slipped into a tangle of tall grass and was caught there. He tugged to free it and glanced up to discover Nancy floating inches from him. Her eyes were black, her face distorted with anger, and he felt a moment’s fear before he realized she could have already attacked him if she’d wanted to.

Nancy’s lips moved again, and again it was like a whisper to John’s ears. “I swore I wouldn’t touch you. I swore it.” Her anguish was clear, but John knew she’d keep her promise, and that gave him the strength to stand, the chain clutched between his fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it, and threw the chain.

The chain sailed through the air and hit the water with a slither, then disappeared beneath the surface, leaving nothing but a ripple in its wake.

The water was shallow, but it didn’t matter. The viscous mud it covered was deep enough to swallow a mired sheep without a trace.

Nancy winked out of existence, still screaming soundlessly, and John staggered forward, off balance after the throw. He tripped on a tussock of grass but saved himself from falling headlong into the bog. Nancy would’ve seen it as fitting if he had. Muttering a few choice words about her under his breath that would’ve had his mother skelping him around the ear, he headed back to the house at a run.

Nick had recovered enough to sit up, his dazed expression clearing when he saw John.

“You’re okay?”

“Me?” John demanded indignantly. “You’re the one lying on the floor as pale as milk. What were you thinking, man?”

“I had to try. I needed to—” Nick broke off, frowning at the salt ring. He scuffed it with his boot, then extended his hand as if searching for something. “The necklace. Nancy. I can’t feel her.”

“I threw it in the peat bog,” John said, made terse by rising guilt. “She disappeared.”

Nick swallowed like he had a lump in his throat, and tucked his feet behind him, then stood up slowly before moving to lean against the table. “I should have done that sooner. Ended this whole thing before it got so out of control.”

“It’s not your style.” John wasn’t sure if he should be relieved Nick didn’t seem angry with him for taking over. “You don’t give up on people like that.”

“And you do?” Nick often heard the unspoken words behind what John said aloud. “No. I couldn’t help her the way she wanted me to. It was the right thing to do. Now she’s free to go...wherever she’s going to end up. I hope it’s with Gareth, if that’s what will make them both happy.”

“You,” John said, stepping in close, hugging Nick with one arm, “are the best person I’ve ever met.”

“Only because you grew up on a tiny island,” Nick told him. “There are much better people out there than me. I’m struggling to figure out what the right thing is half the time.” Nick rubbed his forehead against John’s shoulder. “I wish I was sure.”

“If there is somewhere to go after we die, then that’s where she is, and I canna see it being a bad place. She didn’t deserve it. And she couldn’t stay here. It’s not where she belonged. The dead need to make room for the living.”

“But is she with him?” Nick raised his head to meet John’s gaze. “I can’t— If we weren’t together—”

“There’s nothing stronger than love, and if it ran both ways between them, they’ll find each other. They’ve got eternity to do it in and what’s left of eternity after that to be together.”

“You sound so sure.”

Did he? Well, he didn’t feel certain, only hopeful, but if it erased the worry in Nick’s expression, he’d swear black was white and two plus two was five and be convincing.

“As sure as I am that we’ll be eating lobster tonight. Or have you lost your appetite?”

Nick stepped back, brushing at his dusty, sandy clothes and doing little to improve the state of them. “We’re carrying half the beach with us still. Are we going to get funny looks if we show up at the lobster place like this?”

“We can shake the sand off outside, but no one will care what we look like if we’ve money in our pockets and a friendly word to go along with it.”

And of course that was how it went. They were able to buy two lobsters that had been in the sea not half an hour before, and the redheaded young man at the dock found them a sturdy box to tuck them into so they wouldn’t get too jostled around in the car’s boot. John was glad when they were safely on the ferry and Nick was able to close his eyes and rest his head back against the seat. “You’ll sleep well tonight,” John said, instead of asking if Nick was okay.

“No kidding.” Nick rolled his head toward John and looked at him. “What about you? Okay?”

“Fine, and grateful to have another ghost laid to rest.” He couldn’t reach over and take Nick’s hand with his because of the bandage, but he would have liked to. “Hoping you’ll get a bit of a break now.”

“I’d had one for a long time,” Nick said. The ferry swayed beneath them, and he dug in the space around the gearshift for one of the ginger sweets he used to settle his stomach. “I feel grateful for that.”

It might have seemed a small thing to be grateful for, but John had long admired Nick’s ability to appreciate what others took for granted.

“Imagine if we lived in a city,” Nick continued. He twisted the sweet’s wrapper between his fingers, turning it into a tightly wound rope. “I’d never get any peace. I’d go crazy.”

“When we take a trip, is it hard for you?”

“When I’m passing through, not so much. I’m not there long enough to register with them. If we lived there, though? It’d build and build until I’d crack.” Wrapper screwed into a ball, Nick discarded it, tossing it into the door compartment. “I was headed that way before I came here.”

“Aye, well, we never have to leave again, if it suits you better.” Giving up his trips would be a loss, but one he’d accept willingly if it saved Nick from days like this.

“Are you kidding? No way. There are a dozen places on your bucket list, and we’re checking one off my list this winter and going skiing.”

“That we are not, then.” John tapped his wrist. “I won’t be fit for it, for one thing.”

“Excuses, excuses.”

“I suppose I could sit by a roaring fire with a brandy and a book while you were out on the slopes,” he said thoughtfully, more than half-serious.

“It could wait another year if it needs to.” Nick was completely serious now, teasing set aside. “Somewhere warm instead. Maybe at the beginning of February when the winter is starting to seem endless?”

“We’ll see what the doctor says,” John suggested. Little as the idea of skiing appealed to him personally—he suspected it was likely to end in uncoordinated disaster—what _did_ appeal was the smile he imagined on Nick’s face, cheeks flushed with cold. Brushing snow out of his hair before kissing him—aye, he’d enjoy that part well enough.

There was a gentle scrabbling from the boot, barely audible over the rumble of the ferry’s engine. “I think they’re considering mutiny,” Nick said.

“What’s that called? Anthropomorphism? They’re not thinking anything. They’re lobsters.” Lobsters that John was looking forward to eating in an hour or two, drenched in melted butter. He stretched and tried to remember what time he’d taken paracetamol that morning so he could take another dose. He was already past the point where he needed the stronger pain pills, but keeping on top of the worst of the discomfort was a good idea.

“They must think. Everything thinks.” Nick screwed up his face. “Now I’m getting squeamish about eating them.”

“No, you’re not. You love lobster, and you’ve eaten plenty over the years. Don’t spoil it for yourself by getting fanciful.”

“You ground me,” Nick said after a pause long enough for John to wonder if he’d come over as scolding, which hadn’t been his intention at all. “In the little stuff as well as the big. I love you for it. Love you for everything, but you know that, right?”

“I know it,” John said. There was so much he could’ve said in reply, but they were too tired for hearts and flowers. He twisted around in his seat and patted Nick’s knee. “My Nick.”

“Yeah.” Nick captured John’s hand in his for a brief squeeze, then craned his neck to study the sky. “Looks like rain tomorrow.”

Grateful for the change of subject, John took a look. “Och, it does not, then!” And arguing about that took them all the way home. 

 

~ * ~ The End ~ * ~


End file.
